Austin, Tx. -- How big is technology? Big and growing even faster than some basic human worldwide needs. Unilever's Keith Weed, speaking at the 4A's Transformation event says there are "500 million mobile phones in India. That's more phones than toilets. You can see the pace of technology." On the note, later in the morning, Fareed Zakaria, contributing editor at large, Time Inc., noted: "When I was growing up in Mumbai, we had toilets. Don't worry about that." Zakaria worried about the uneven globalization of the world. For instance, the U.S. still has its problems -- economically. …

Austin, Tx. -- The bane of some marketing companies existence is the growing influence of those bottom line procurement officers. Unilever worldwide marketing chief, Keith Weed, speaking at the 4A's Transformation event, doesn't like it. He says, "some marketers have been hiding behind procurement." Weed says procurement executives should be responsible for signing off on big decisions -- but only after all meaningful and thoughtful decisions have been made by marketing executives. "We don't work in the commodity field," says Weed. "You want to use them in the right way."

After some bad years, there is good news for advertising agencies. In an opening remarks at the American Association of Advertising Agencies' Transformation 2011, Nancy Hill, president and chief executive officer of the 4A'sclients with clients looking to spend more on media, things are looking up. Key evidence: This year's Super Bowl was the quickest sold event to advertisers in years, with some 111 million viewers watching, a record -- and one which witnessed 4064 tweets in one second, during the final drive of the game. The Oscars witnessed its highest price per 30-second commercial spot, $1.8 million. …

Austin, Tx. -- Looking for that big opening presentation or keynote on the first day of the American Association of Advertising Agencies's annual media event, now call "Transformation"? Forget about it. Transformation 2011, in Austin, Tx, this year, has gone back to devote its whole first day to its SAM events -- small and mid-size ad agency workshops. Previously, over the last few years, the SAM workshops have been filtered into the two and half day conference -- while bigger presentations and keynotes have been occurring. Highlighting the event, the 4A's will host a panel on Wednesday …

Turns out it's "curator of popular culture." How do I know that? Because Madison Avenue's first person with that title – former Adweek ad critic, and new Goodby, Silverstein & Partners COPC, just told attendees at OMMA Global that that's what one of the digerati at the conference just told us. Actually, she said, "That's a very 3.0 title." Another surprising thing about the title, Lippert said, is that she's the one who has gotten it at GS&P. "I just savaged [GS&P's] Chevrolet ads," Lippert confided, adding, "It was unbelievable that Jeff Goodby called me and …

"Well, it doesn't," Craig Bierley, the advertising director of Buick/GMC said – more than a bit irritably , I might add – as he strode to the stage to give his afternoon keynote presentation at OMMA Global. Bierley, of course, was talking about the lack of Internet connectivity here at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis, which is bad if you're a trade journalist trying to blog what important speakers like Bierely are trying to say (explanation, but it's really bad if you're a leading edge marketer trying to show leading edge content that is Internet connected. "Some of …

One of the many reasons I love the role Mitch Oscar is playing in our industry is that he's not afraid to say the truth. And he dropped a pretty big truth bomb during the OMMA Global "living room wars" panel. As panelists debated the rightful place for TV and video content in the living room, and the degree to which advertising will play a role in it, Oscar reminded attendees that there's "another cultural issue" holding billions of dollars worth of advertising from the online video marketplace. And it isn't the consumer's culture. It's Madison Avenue's culture. "The …

That's right. It's not enough to simply have compelling content to dominate the TV viewing experience in the future. You need three things, Microsoft's Ginny Musante told OMMA Global attendees this morning: The best content, great software, and the best end-user experience. On that note, Musante plugged the potential for Microsoft's new gesture-based interface system, Kinect. "What's better than raising your hand to interact with your television," Musante asked, adding, "Or raising your voice."

So who's going to pay for the all that high-end, scripted programming – you know, the kind we've been watching on TV for more than half a century – if it goes over-the-top to viewers who can bypass traditional advertising message that historically have underwritten it? That was the question that MPG Televisual chief Mitch Oscar asked during the opening panel at OMMA Global in San Francisco. Oscar, citing his own teenage son's Xbox-based video streaming behavior noted that he is a lot like other young viewers who are watching long-form content without ads. Of course, we …

During his opening keynote at OMMA Global in San Francisco, comScore chief Gian Fulgoni shared some data showing that less than two-thirds (65%) of consumers say they now access conventional TV programming only via a traditional TV platform. Nearly a third (29%) say they currently access TV content via some sort of "cross-platform" set-up, while 6% do it exclusively via the Internet.