The fact that an executive from Garrand Marketing Communications bested thousands of competitors to win the right to produce a TV spot for the Super Bowl is, of course, big news. It would be big news for any winner. The fact that he works for an agency in Portland, Maine, is big news only because we don’t think of ourselves as a major player in the advertising business.

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CBS is about to start showing some skin. About a year after they were introduced, a handful of video-ad formats-called bugs, tickers and skin – are jockeying to become the favorites among marketers. The skin format, in which the ad appears in a graphic surrounding the window where the video plays, has been slower to gain momentum because it isn’t widely available on top video sites.

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A consortium of movie exhibitors has obtained the backing of five Hollywood studios for a plan to help finance the rollout of digital cinema equipment in U.S. theaters, bolstering the effort to make products like 3-D cinema widely available. Though the transformation to digital projectors in theaters has been discussed for a decade, only in the past few months have a number of Hollywood’s biggest studios signed on to the project.

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For a few days in May, network executives and media buyers gather for the “upfront,” the television industry’s most lucrative – and over-the-top – ritual. For almost 50 years, ad buyers have made the annual trek to New York to watch TV execs outline their networks’ fall-season offerings, negotiate for billions of dollars in advertising time and indulge in endless servings of demographic jargon and chilled jumbo shrimp.

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A creative brief has one simple goal: To elicit the necessary client input needed to guide the production process. These days many advertisers seem to rush through, or skip, this process. This likely is a direct result of the rushed timelines for media campaigns and lack of proper resources.

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The companies behind a controversial new online exchange for buying ad time on television are moving ahead with their plan to test the system, over the objections of many TV networks, which argue that it could erode prices. The Online Media Exchange system, which was created last fall by eBay…

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I am continually astonished at the number of mailings and ads I see that fail to contain testimonials from delighted Testimonials are a strong lift element in a mailing or ad. Your claims are more believable and prospects feel good about doing business with you.

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When PC Universe Inc. redesigned its web site last year, the company knew that just giving the home page a new treatment wasn’t enough to energize sales or take market share from competitors. It wanted a site with better features and functions that would grab shoppers’ attention and turn browsers into buyers.

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Mainstream direct marketing finally has discovered full-color, variable digital print. The volume of full-color digital print continues to jump and has become the fastest-growing direct marketing medium. The reason for its growth is no secret to firms that are driven by results. Variable targeted content increases response rates and gives marketers tremendous flexibility in changing messaging and creative to match the marketing opportunity.

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Google is extending its advertising reach into a new medium with the announcement in January of its agreement to acquire dMarc Broadcasting Inc. The deal, expected to close this quarter, means an initial $102 million in cash for the radio ad platform provider with performance-based payouts to come. But what does Google’s move into radio advertising mean for retailer search marketers?

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