For those who don't speak Scottish, the headline is from Robert Burns' epic 18th Century poem. It translates to "go often askew," and that's pretty much how I feel about the effect the pandemic has been having on all our plans. Even our best laid ones.

I've covered many crises impacting the advertising and media industry over the past four decades, but never one rolling out like this one in real-time, and potentially, impacting so many people individually. I'm not sure why we weren't more prepared, and why it seems we were caught flat-footed, but I suspect it's human nature to deny a threat until it's on your front step. "We have been surprised that more companies had not gone through the 'war room' planning and meeting discussions we highlighted two weeks ago in our note," Pivotal Research Group analyst Michael Levine writes in an advisory ...

Advertising, media and technology industry "scapes" -- the kind of graphically organized charts delineating vital industry ecosystems popularized by investment banking firm Luma Partners -- may seem like they're a dime a dozen these days, but a new one created by an industry ethicist may be the most important one Madison Avenue will ever use.

Since we originally launched this blog with a real-time data tracking index -- the now dormant RTB500 -- MediaPost has collaborated with a variety of sources capable of producing unique views of the advertising and media marketplace. Today, we are launching one that is a little more self-reflecting: an index of the key words and phrases Madison Avenue is most interested in.

There were some important indicators disclosed as part of The Trade Desk's earnings call late last week, especially the growth of connected TV, and on a related note, the implications for data-targeted programmatic buys in a "post-cookie" world.

What if you could target businesses based on their intent signals using an identity marker as indelible as a consumer's social security number? Well, now you can.

On this Presidents Day, I'd like you to think about how the speed of media has changed since our first President, and what implications that holds for a Republic that relies on informed citizens. When our founders declared independence from the British it took six days before the event in Philadelphia was published in newspapers in New York and 43 days before it was published in London.

After years of erosion, ad industry spending is beginning to gain share vs. the money consumers pay directly for media, especially in the U.S. But there are some new models emerging for underwriting the cost of media that are not yet being properly accounted for in the mix: Specifically, media that is paid for by consumers trading their own identity data.

On the eve of the State of the Union Address, USA Facts has issued a report on the State of the Union that reflects some volatility in some fundamental areas, including the population, the infrastructure, education, health, crime, defense, the U.S. standard of living, and yes, the economy, too. While the U.S. GDP grew 2.3% in 2019, the weakest of the three years of the current administration, it's on line with the recent historical average since we pulled out of the 2018 recession.

I'm calling today's column the honorary rebrand of "RSTBlog" (for Real Serious Time Blog), because of an especially consequential temporal media shift. Indeed, possibly, an existential one. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist late last week announced it is moving the denomination it uses to measure how long we've got before "midnight" to seconds, not minutes.