The banner ad is 18 years old - which makes it old enough to smoke, vote, join the military, and be publicly reviled as a "symbol of all that's wrong with online advertising." But as Giselle Abramovich laid out in her recent Digiday article 5 Really Creative Banner Ads, "... not all banner ads are awful punch-monkey executions."

Did you run into Adam Kleinberg at SXSW Interactive? Brian Morrissey of Digiday caught up with Adam to talk SXSW, Al Gore, growth, and optimization. You can read Adam's thoughts, as well as those from David Berkowitz of 360i, Ben Kunz of Mediassociates, Babs Rangaiah of Unilever, and Richard ting of R/GA, in the article What Caught Marketers’ Eyes at SXSW.

Should agencies fear current trends in client relations, technology, and publishing? In his recent Digiday article Brand-Agency Disintermediation Isn't the Real Problem Traction CEO Adam Kleinberg sets forth that for the brand-agency relationship, "The value has shifted — and continues to shift — but it hasn’t diminished." 

Traction CEO Adam Kleinberg was recently quoted in the Digiday article Publishers Push into Agency Turf. Exploring the issue of publisher-driven content creation and what that means for agencies, the article was written by Jack Marshall. 

Traction CEO Adam Kleinberg was recently featured in the Digiday article 5 Ways to Help Fix the Agency Pitch Process. Based off a conversation with Digiday author Jack Marshall, it features Adam's always spot-on insights into client-side communication, client-agency "chemistry", knowing when to say no, spec work, and knowing yourself as an agency. 

I was quoted this morning in an article by Jack Marshall on Digiday about "The Most Digital Agency" (the answer: monster conglomerate WPP who just bought AKQA).

Here's what I said:

We're pleased to announce two upcoming speaking events for Traction CEO, Adam Kleinberg in April.

DigiDay Video Upfront, April 14 at 12:55pm in Los Angeles 

Customer Engagement Technology World, April 27 at 2pm in San Francisco

Read more for details.

Traction's Creative Director, Theo Fanning, had the opportunity to share some of his views on advertising, media, mobile and more at DIGIDAY: ON MEDIA and DIGIDAY: MOBILE.

Needless to say, some of his comments were insightful, polarizing and occasionally charmingly incoherent.

Watch the panel discussions and judge the carnage for yourself:

Traction's illustrious (some might say illustrated) creative director, Theo Fanning, has been confirmed to speak at two back-to-back industry events: DIGIDAY: ON MEDIA and DIGIDAY: MOBILE.