My parents used to love Bob Hope. Thought he was the funniest man alive. Full confession - I never thought he was funny. On the other hand, I love Steve Martin, Monty Python and Jim Gaffigan. While my kids think all of them are relatively amusing, they prefer more outrageous, sometimes shocking, humor.

Working in media planning and buying I was forced to realize something I had rejected my whole life - sports are important and valuable. While time-shifted viewing continues to rise, sports are viewed live 99% of the time. 

Remember the Master Lock television spot where they fire a bullet through a lock and it stays closed? The tagline was Tough Under Fire.

I believe in firsts. First to market. First to break a story. First time to do something. It’s good to be first. During this week of Super Bowl hoopla, I’d like recognize the first commercial to launch a marketing and advertising phenomenon: Apple’s 1984.

“Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” John Wanamaker didn’t have big data and cloud storage to prove the worth of his advertising. What’s your excuse?

We have all heard 2014 dubbed the “year of content” in the marketing world, but many sources are projecting that marketers will master a new trend this year: Moment Marketing. Moment Marketing a.k.a. Adaptive Marketing is a term used to encompass any sort of communication or marketing efforts that drive engagement with consumers on up-to-the-minute topics. This year, expect many brands to incorporate current events into their marketing - and specifically social media - strategy.

The Olympics are over, and after 15 days of nonstop competition lots of gold was dished out. At VI we just completed our own winter games, three weeks of Addy Awards in the three cities we hang our flag. Likewise, much gold was claimed.

As a media buyer I am quite often questioned about TV and its value as an advertising medium. Some of the most common things I hear when questioned on whether to use TV ads or not are the claims that people are fast-forwarding through commercials or viewing television online. All of these things have truth to them, but at the end of the day, TV still reins true as the quickest way to reach the largest audience.

You may have noticed videos on your newsfeed acting a little different recently. Since September, Facebook has been testing a new feature that plays users videos automatically as you scroll or swipe past them. They report seeing an increase in views, likes, shares and comments by more than 10%.

As I might have mentioned before, I love fall TV premieres. We have made it well into December and some shows have seen success while others have seen a quick and timely demise. I have put some thought into moving into a career of TV gambling as my guesses of We Are Men and Lucky 7 were quickly cancelled. I mean seriously, you put “Lucky” in the name, total jinx. Nothing has seen it’s second season renewal yet but I’ve got my fingers crossed for The Blacklist.

I’ve known advertising was the field I wanted to go into since high school. The exact reasons have changed over time but the overall interest in the power of advertising remains the same.

Have you ever left a comment on YouTube? What about anything on Blogger? Ever left a review on a Google Place or maybe you're one of the 540,000,000 accounts on Google+...if you nodded your head to any of these, there is a good chance you are about to become a Google advertising star.