For all the talk of fragmentation in media, isn’t it funny how similar the digital media business is to the old TV business? Take a second and think about it from the perspective of a mainstream advertiser… In the old days an advertiser had three network television stations to choose... Continue reading

Have you ever tried “Binge Clicking”? The modern media era has ushered in the concept of binge-viewing, where a person sits down to watch all episodes of a show in a shortened time frame. I recently did this with Marvel’s Daredevil on Netflix, but I rarely have the time to... Continue reading

There’s a war going on, but you may not have noticed it. It’s a subtle war and it’s about to heat up substantially over the next few years. It’s the war for talent! Companies are going to be fighting for the best talent to fill a bunch of open positions... Continue reading

Last week was a special one in the history of being a geek. In fact it was like Christmas came early. The Internet loves some comic book and fantasy content – that’s for sure! For those of you who may have been buried under a rock the last week or... Continue reading

Positioning a B2B brand in today’s age of cluttered technology start-ups can be a maddening endeavor. There are endless companies out there trying to garner the attention of the same target audience, regardless of who your audience is, and you tend to come to a position which is inevitably already... Continue reading

There are some dirty truths about fraud and I’m really starting to agree that it’s beyond time our industry addresses the topic. I latched onto viewability almost immediately when the topic was brought up, but I’ll admit I didn’t attach my passion to the fraud topic quite as readily because... Continue reading

If your marketing isn’t working, it’s because you may not know who you’re talking to. After all, if you don’t know your audience, how can you know what they want to hear about? The ability to identify the audience you’re speaking to is the single most important requirement for any... Continue reading

Unicorns, Yeti’s, Griffin’s; these are the topic du jour in Silicon Valley. It used to be we talked about tangible topics like revenue, ROI, and customer experiences but today the press is all about mythical creatures and whether or not they are real. The hyperbole around these mythical creatures is... Continue reading

What does it take to hire a successful CMO in today’s marketing economy? Answering that question is not easy because the environment keeps changing, but there are some key elements you must have in the person leading your marketing. First and foremost a CMO must have the ability to lead... Continue reading

How broad is the definition of a “Digital Experience” in today’s world? Will my kids remember how quaint this era of digital is compared to what they’ll see when they’re older? It would seem almost every experience is, in some way, a Digital Experience. I just spent 7 days gallivanting... Continue reading

Data is hot. It’s literally on fire right now and if you’re not working on a Data Strategy for your marketing and advertising needs, then you’re likely going to be stumbling in the next 12-24 months, and stumbling badly. A Data Strategy can be a daunting task for a marketer... Continue reading

Are you afraid of the future? Are you afraid for your job? All the excitement around technology and data in the marketing eco-system creates new opportunities, but opportunity is dependent on change and change requires new roles and skills. With technology coming to the aid of marketers, what roles are... Continue reading

I think the collective consciousness is trending towards a world with a collective conscience. After years of materialism, potty-mouthed humor and insensitive hatred for one another, its about time we woke up and realized the person next to you is a human being. The Super Bowl is the only event... Continue reading

I hate to waste things. I hate wasting time. I hate wasting my breath. I hate wasting food and I despise wasting money. As an old media guy, I also hate wasting budget which is why addressable media is so exciting to me. I love being efficient and I love... Continue reading

Much of my writing the last year has been around the concept of closing the gap in marketing between the unknown and the known; referring to how you should reduce untargeted message delivery to an anonymous audience and instead use data to know something about everyone, ensuring 100% targeted delivery.... Continue reading

Much of the last year saw the maturation of mobile as a medium for marketers, but one thing that became ever more apparent to me is that mobile is not a strategy unto itself. It is a channel and should be treated as such. Mobile is a channel, albeit one... Continue reading

It’s a new year, and my 15th consecutive year writing the Wednesday Online Spin with Mediapost. In 15 years I’ve never missed a week, and I look forward to 15 more. In 15 years I’ve seen this business explode, even more so than I did in the 7 years prior... Continue reading

This is the time of year when pundits and thought leaders alike make bold, attention-grabbing predictions about what you can look forward to in the coming year. These types of prognostications tend to be grandiose, overbearing and pretty much the same thing from column to column. It’s as if they... Continue reading

Marketers today are radically different than marketers from just 10 years ago because marketers today depend on two things they didn’t; Data and Content. The old school marketer focused on two traditional axes; the media and the message. In basic terms these refer to media buying and creative. I come... Continue reading

The next 5-10 years are a transition period for Television, and what lies at the end of this transition is pretty amazing for advertisers. Consider this period the “middleware” stage for TV. There are two clear components that define this transition period. First, it’s about the hardware designed to bridge... Continue reading

For a very long time, marketers have been developing strategies and plans to achieve marketing objectives like awareness, perception and efficiency. Recently, the pendulum has shifted and marketers are starting to attain a more significant seat at the C-level table because they’ve come to realize marketing metrics are not necessarily... Continue reading

“They were the best of times; they were the worst of times… for sales people”. I should actually rephrase that to “they were the best of tactics; they were the worst of tactics”, because there are some pretty poor tactics employed by sales people these days, which is funny given... Continue reading

The most effective, and valuable CMO’s of the future will also be responsible for revenue, including direct sales and channel sales. I challenge any CMO in the industry to defy that prediction. Continue reading

The technology exists to allow creators to create once and content to be delivered everywhere, which is exactly as it should be from an experiential point of view, but marketers are still looking at mobile as an after-thought. Technology has put make-up over the blemishes that result from marketer’s shortsighted view of mobile. To succeed in mobile, you have to scrub the strategy to make sure it’s sound and not repurposed from somewhere else. Continue reading

Who said publishing is dead? Continue reading