John Ross recently joined IPG’s Mediabrands to become President of the Emerging Media Lab. John brings 20 years of retail experience to the job, most recently as VP of Advertising and Marketing for Home Depot. I sat down with him during a recent visit to Los Angeles (John will be managing a trifecta commute between his home base in Atlanta, Mediabrands offices in NY, and the Lab in Los Angeles) to talk about why retail and emerging media are well suited, and what challenges lay ahead for both sectors. Interview after the jump. Read More »

The human brain loves outliers.  It uses them to provide new perspectives on the norm.  With this in mind, Nielsen’s recent “How Teens Use Media” report attempts to ignore outliers, and look purely at research to give a perspective of teen media consumption, and in so doing, attempts to portray a more grounded and non-biased  perspective of teen behavior.  Read More »

The most popular video of Susan Boyle’s performance for Britain’s Got Talent on Youtube.com has amassed over 70 million views as of June 2009. Her outstanding performance on the popular TV show would have made her famous in the Great Britain, but it is YouTube that made her a global household name. Read More »

A new report by Initiative finds that shifts in the economic climate have created permanent shifts in consumer behavior. The report “Game Changer” provides marketers with insight on how brands can take advantage of changing values in their products and messaging.  Some of the key findings included: Read More »

Recently I began to notice that Facebook’s friend suggestions were increasingly accurate, and increasingly far-fetched. Long-lost family members and friends, former teachers, old acquaintances. At first, it seemed innocent enough. Read More »