TV or Not TV? Is that the question?
TV is dead. Or is it? That’s what some people might expect to hear from the tech glitterati that has been descending on Austin, TX for South by Southwest (SXSW) these past few days. by Kevin Conroy / Univision Insights

The power of the purse is losing ground to the weight of the wallet and a new breed of male consumer is emerging, this according to Defy Media’s 2nd annual Acumen Report: Brand New Man. More than 2,000 men ages 18-49 participated in the study to voice opinions on how they spark a relationship with a new brand, research products and make purchasing decisions across a wide variety of categories including alcohol, snacks and grooming products.
Imagine seeing a dozen pictures flash by in a fraction of a second. You might think it would be impossible to identify any images you see for such a short time. However, a team of neuroscientists from MIT has found that the human brain can process entire images that the eye sees for as little as 13 milliseconds — the first evidence of such rapid processing speed.
Congressman Dave Camp (R-MI), chair of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, released draft tax reform legislation which includes a provision that will, if enacted, severely impact the economy and lead to significant job loss. This provision, which would be phased-in for tax years beginning before 2018, would allow advertisers to deduct only 50 percent of all advertising expenses in the first year and amortize the remaining 50 percent over the next 10 years. Since the inception of the Tax Code in 1913, advertising has been treated as a fully tax deductible ordinary and necessary business expense.
As a headline in today’s Wall Street Journaldeclares,“For Some Retailers, Success in Simply Staying Alive.” The lede does it even better: “For some of the country’s weakest retailers, less red is the new black.”
I’ve been in the media industry for over six years in New York and San Diego at various ad agencies, and one of my favorite parts of the job is my interaction with sales reps. It could be argued that we work in the best industry in the world, because we’re tasked with innovating, strategizing and socializing. The list below includes dos and don’ts for both media buyers and planners and sales reps, based on my own observations, heart-to-hearts with some of my favorite reps, and conversations with fellow media people. If we all follow these simple rules, we can minimize frustrations and have more time for happy hours.
I have many times said that Google is probably the most useful company in the world. They are making information availability pervasive and usable. They have a service called Google Trends that traces, in relative terms, the prevalence of searches of specific terms and expressions in their search engine. They do not provide actual frequencies but percentages of a total represented by the tallest point in the distribution and that is equal to 100.
The National Retail Federation released its 2014 economic forecast today, projecting retail industry sales (which exclude automobiles, gas stations, and restaurants) will increase 4.1 percent*, up from the preliminary 3.7 percent growth seen in 2013. NRF also announced today it expects online sales in 2014 to grow between 9 and 12 percent.
Marketers will dramatically increase their budgets for social media even as they have difficulty showing its effectiveness, a new survey shows.

























