Many of you are dealing with a typical challenge: how to transform your organization from one manner of operation into another. Sometimes you're dealing with the transformation from traditional to digital; in other cases, the shift is from digital to data-driven. In every case, the transformation is difficult and feels very uncomfortable, but don't lose faith - change often takes quite a long time.

I think I'm missing part of my brain. You know how I know this? Because I winterized my RV. Correction: I tried to winterize my RV. If not for the help of my friend Ted, I'm pretty sure said RV would have been a nonfunctioning hulk of fiberglass and metal come next spring. There would be fluids oozing from places not intended by the manufacturer.

In an interview I read last week, Babs Rangaiah, Unilever's vice president of global media innovation and ventures, conveniently summarized all the current challenges of delivering brand content to consumers effectively. He listed ad blocking, the problematic programmatic evolution, and the need to clean up ad fraud and execute direct relationships with leading digital platforms and start-ups. For argument's sake, let's say we could wave a magic wand and make all those issues go away. Then all of a sudden we would be forced to think more about the creation of actual content. And what marketers tend to forget today …

Although digital media and advertising look very different today than in 2007 when the first iPhone landed, there are some immutable constants which, over time, have come to form our ad tech ecosystem.

The current GE campaign, "What's the Matter with Owen?," is sheer brilliance because it does what good advertising should do. It embraces an element of truth, no matter how uncomfortable it may be, and deals with it head-on in an attempt to change perception of a brand.

We've been here before. Something becomes valuable because it's scarce. The minute society agrees on the newly assigned value, wars begin because of it. Typically these things have been physical items, and the battle lines have been drawn geographically. But this time is different. This time, we're fighting over attention -- specifically, our attention -- and the battle is between individuals and corporations.

As part of my day job, I often counsel clients who ask if they should bring in a change agent, like a new CEO or CMO who "thinks radically different from us." My answer is almost always a resounding "No."