Cannes Lions Festival
If Don Draper were alive, the fictional hero of “Mad Men” would be in Cannes this week for the annual Cannes Lions Festival. This is the world’s largest party (ahem… “festival”) for the advertising industry. So what if the European Union is teetering on the verge of collapse? “Faisons la fete,” everybody… let’s party! Explosive Continue Reading →
Lifetime Value
It is our task, both in science and in society at large, is to prove the conventional wisdom wrong and to make our unpredictable dreams come true. –Freeman Dyson, theoretical physicist For thirty years I have been at war with myself. In these years, we have owned media, sold it and alternately owned a marketing Continue Reading →
Xbox 360
Microsoft recently filed a patent application for technology that would give its Xbox 360 Kinect sensor the ability to read users’ facial expressions and body language, thus enabling Microsoft to send them ads based on their emotional states. Jacob Aron at New Scientist writes that the technology in the patent application “suggests a company could Continue Reading →
Minority Report Ad
Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report” painted a scary picture of the future in a number of ways. For privacy advocates, one of several nightmarish technologies used in the film allowed outdoor signs and billboards to play targeted interactive advertisements by scanning the eyeballs of passers-by in order to identify them. Such technology isn’t widely available yet, Continue Reading →
Basketball Players
Originally posted at Keller Fay June is a very active time for sports television:  the NBA Playoffs are in full throttle along with the Stanley Cup, MLB races are taking shape, the US Open Golf tournament is soon upon us with Tiger Woods once again relevant, and two of Tennis’s major tournaments (The French Open Continue Reading →
Facebook
The run up to Facebook’s IPO was abuzz with optimism about just how large and successful it would be.  The first few days following the IPO have been awash with stories of doom and gloom, a failed IPO, and lawsuits.  It’s now time for some perspective – not from an investor’s point of view, but Continue Reading →
The Cable Show
Many among The Cable Show’s 12,000-plus attendees in Boston last week may, in the years ahead, tell anyone they like about witnessing the birth of not one, but two landmark TV developments. We’ll see…and maybe you’ll see. Let’s explain what went down first. This pair of developments came from Comcast, cable operator numero uno and Continue Reading →