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Right Hand…Meet Left Hand!
I’m not generally inclined to comment in this space on the decisions of any particular company, but the events of the past two weeks at Microsoft have left me anxious and mystified. But it turns out...
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Confessions of a Confessor.
Along with so many in our industry, I’ve been riveted by Digiday’s ongoing series of “Confessions” articles. For the uninitiated, someone in a particular role in the business goes incognito and spills...
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Pioneering.
Over the years I’ve used this space to offer reviews and amplification of books that I think are important to the digital advertising and marketing community. Some are directly about sales theory...
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Brave New Agency.
Last week in this space I commented on the look of publisher’s sales force going forward (“Media Seller 3.0”). I hadn’t intended to bookend that with a discussion of the future media agency, but Brian...
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Our Flavor Graveyard.
I just finished speaking to a cavernous room filled with ad operations executives, technology and platform companies and assorted others at the Yield Executive Summit. Naturally the keynote focused on...
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A Small World, After All?
Last week’s column by Digiday’s Brian Morrissey – “Science vs. Art in Digital Advertising” — got me thinking. Brian doesn’t necessarily come right out and say that he emperor is naked, but does point...
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Chucks, 2.0.
When I was a kid in the L.A. suburbs of the late 60s, we all played every major sport — park league football in the fall, basketball on outdoor concrete courts in the winter, and baseball in the...
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Staying Dry in the Rain.
Less than a month ago I led an all-day meeting of a few dozen digital sales leaders at The Upstream Seller Forum. One of our topics was “The Incredible Shrinking Third Quarter,” a discussion prompted...
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The Agency’s Secret Weapon: Sellers
I read with great interest Giselle Abrovovich’s recent Digiday article on “5 Ways Brands are Cutting Out Agencies.” It seems that whether they’re flirting with digital start-ups, generating social...
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The Hedgehog and the Fox.
Kicking off yesterday’s IAB Annual Leadership Meeting was one of my favorite writers and thinkers: Nate Silver, author of “The Signal and the Noise” and the ridiculously accurate FiveThirtyEight...
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Six Words About Digital Marketing.
In workshops I often challenge digital sellers to distill their ideas, selling points and customer challenges into as few words as possible. In one very trying exercise, the goal is to boil down your...
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Breaking…Better?
Advertising Week 2013 runs through Friday. Breaking Bad ends its 6-season run on Sunday night. Coincidence? Perhaps… When I think of the first 12 or 13 years of the digital ad business, it now seems...
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Medium? Still Too Small.
The following was originally posted in October of 2005. In the intervening eight years, not much has changed beyond marketers swapping out the term “internet” and swapping in “digital.” All the...
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The Fab Five.
I just read a great Forbes Article on “5 Things Super Successful People Do Before 8 AM.” I can tell you without a trace of irony that I LOVE stuff like this. Considering the number of...
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The Mouse Click That Roared.
I haven’t always agreed with John Battelle, but ever since we worked on opposite coasts for Wired Magazine in 1994 I’ve had no doubt that he was an ambitious and provocative thinker. “The Search” is...
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This Cage Called ‘Advertising’
In case you haven’t picked it up in these Drift posts over the years, I’m obsessed by words. Words can elevate or crush; they can liberate, obfuscate, educate, denigrate, illustrate or illuminate. And...
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The Wolf of Madison Avenue.
Back on February 10th I wrote a post from the floor of the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting all about “The F Word.” That F Word, of course, being “Fraud.” Seemingly out of nowhere, the topic came to...
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Fool’s Gold.
April Fools day had always been such a kick. A little fun and whimsy to break up the late winter gloom. But now, today, it’s just another day. No fun and brightness, just more gloom. You see,...
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The Great Budget Chase.
Since The Drift is primarily aimed at the sell side of our industry, I tend not to get very many comments from ad agency execs. But I’m hoping what I write today will ring true with agency leaders and...
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Native vs. Naive.
Lots of hate brewing lately for native advertising. We’ve all seen John Oliver’s hilarious 12 minute rant on his HBO show, “Last Week Tonight.” More recently, on Digiday, we learn – courtesy of JWT...
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