• ONLINE SPIN
    If Content Remains King Of TV Advertising, Will Audience Or Performance Be Queen?
    The television ad industry knows that big change is afoot. Ratings are declining, audiences are fragmenting, digital competition is fierce, and agencies and advertisers are pushing back hard on their CPM increases. Fortunately, however, TV companies have recognized that the future of their ad business will look a lot like digital's, which is why many are working hard to develop digital-like, premium-priced, data-optimized ad products. It's the right move, yet it may not be enough.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    High-Level Respect For Past Good For Start-Ups
    There are two competing camps in the digital media landscape: those who respect the past and those who don't. These dichotomous points of view are never more visible than they are in the start-up world, where there's seemingly a war between the two.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    We're Becoming Intellectually 'Obese'
    Humans are defined by scarcity. All our evolutionary adaptations tend to be built to ensure survival in harsh environments. This can sometimes backfire on us in times of abundance -- both of food and information.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Let's Play Ball: Sports Sponsorship Hits And Misses
    Many of you know that I am a bit of a sport sponsorship snob. Having worked for two of the biggest global sports sponsors, and been closely involved in the negotiation for and implementation of some of the biggest sports platforms in the world does that to you.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    On Sarin And Cyberwar
    The events this week provided a condensed view of the past, present and future of weapons technology. Assad's attack on Tuesday used sarin gas, an old technology dating from 1938 (but no less horrible for being old). The U.S. response on Thursday used Tomahawk missiles, a tech dating from the 1970s. And the most instructive glimpse of what the future will hold came in the form of the (intended or unintended) symbolism of the timing of the U.S. announcement: right after President Trump's dinner with Chinese president Xi Jinping.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Getting Next To Adjacency
    This week the news has been filled with indignation from the buy side, and low-key defensiveness from the sell side regarding an issue we all know well: adjacency. The apparent outrage by advertisers is puzzling, though. What? You didn't know? Nobody saw this coming? Or was it FOFO: Fear of Finding Out? Maybe it was simply that there is a new kind of bad thing: hate speech. Maybe brands, under pressure, just need to lop off the low-yield contexts, and this is just a good excuse. Maybe the romance of the open Web is withering under fire from fraudsters and …
  • ONLINE SPIN
    I Mean, The Death Of Proper Storytelling Is Upon Us
    Storytelling requires thought. When you're thinking of the next thing to say, you tend to try and fill that void. I mean... this is where, ya know, you tend to fill in, ya know, with useless words that bring no value, ya know, and serve to do nothing more than distract the listener, right?
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Searching For Leadership
    I was planning on writing a very erudite column on how our consumption of news has drastically changed, when I decided to do a research check on Google Trends and found something interesting. It should come as no surprise to learn that Donald Trump is dominating news searches on Google. What was surprising: the number-one audience with an appetite for "Trumpie Tidbits" is Canadians. That's right, my fellow countrymen can't get enough of the guy.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Agency Compensation: Toward A Deliverables-Driven Project Model
    All agencies and most marketers still tend to think in terms of long-range client-agency relationships. But I think it might be time to throw that "Mad Men"-era thinking overboard and completely rethink the client-agency compensation model. What clients want today is a list of stuff that doesn't really fit into a singular comp model anymore. So why not group it differently, and charge differently, too?
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