I just got back from the iMedia Breakthrough Summit which was almost completely focused on mobile. Within the first 10 minutes of the conference, someone cracked the joke that "once again, this is the year of mobile!"

There are a zillion stats I could post (I won't bother) showing we all use smartphones to access the internet these days. But what does that mean for advertisers? 

It is pretty obvious that we are fans of the iconic work of Rankin-Bass studios, but it's not only their nostalgic stop-motion animation that we relish—it's also the sappy messaging that has shaped our lives and our business.

Which made us start to examine holiday TV specials and the lessons they teach.

No one rocks an award show like Bob rocks an award show. 

We are very pleased to announce that Traction's Find your Bob integrated brand campaign for Accountemps took top honors at the 2012 BtoB's Best awards and was named best online campaign.

Advertisers, marketers and agencies alike have had a tough year, but at the end of it all we have plenty reasons to be thankful. 

Here are seven things that any and all of us industry folk can thank our lucky stars for.

I had a conversation with a potential client on Friday afternoon. She works for a technology company. A company with great technology in the cloud space. 

I asked her about the brand messaging. She told me three product attributes. We have great scalability. We have great customer service. Etcetera.

Traction was recently featured in HOW Design's article 5 Creative Workplaces in the Western US. Focusing on our building's "brick and timber meets neo-modern" architecture; the article also touched on our in-house forest and our house band's rehearsal space. 

Congratulations to Traction CEO Adam Kleinberg for being named to this prestigious list! The iMedia 25 is an annual list of "...cutting edge creatives, strategists, and technology innovators with big ideas..." - which we think perfectly describes Adam. 

Coca-Cola has relaunched their corporate website as a content portal with, get this, actual great content. Some of it is about the brand, but some isn't. Should Coke try to be a magazine? Will it succeed?

Is this a brilliant move or insanity?

Mike Shields wrote an epic piece in Ad Week yesterday about the mess that the digital advertising technology landscape has become. He called it the "Ad Wreck."

I was honored that Mike asked my opinion on the proliferation of technology companies cluttering the ad tech space and got quoted in the article...

In the mind of the consumer, every brand gets to be One Thing. When Bill Clinton ran for president, James Carville famously hung a banner in campaign HQ saying "It's the economy, stupid." No matter what question was asked from the press, the Clinton team knew their job was to turn the conversation back to the One Thing that really mattered to their "customers": the economy.