This Sunday in the US, the Discovery Channel will debut its highly anticipated 11-part series Life and is getting the word out with help from Microsoft Advertising . From the makers of the spellbinding Planet Earth series, Life reveals the spectacular behaviors animals have evolved in order to thrive, many of which have been captured using high-definition filming techniques for the first time. Were excited about the program, but as folks in the advertising industry,

Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine. -Robert C. Gallagher Gallagher's famous quip rings true in many aspects of my life - career, children, and climate change to name a few - but none more noticeable than the TV viewing experience. The new world of TV is changing - and fragmenting - so quickly that I am starting to think that the days of a "typical" TV experience are gone forever. In the swirl of all of this change,

On March 9 the new US MSN homepage made its debut offering search, news, local, and social networking â€" all in one place. I recently sat down with Bob Visse, General Manager of MSN Product Management, to capture his thoughts on the new, clean look of the MSN homepage, the new features and functionality, and what this means for advertisers. I learned that Bob and his team have captured over 70,

On Monday, I went to the South by Southwest panel - How Does an Advertising Pro Adapt to New Communication Techniques? I had been looking forward to this session. One of the presenters, Damon Brewster, had written an interesting blog post about why he feels the SXSW conference is important for advertisers, in a way comparable to the advertising industry extravaganza in Cannes, http://www.boardsmag.com/community/blogs/input/index.php?p=844 .

Last week, MSN UK announced the official launch of the MSN Video Player . In a series of interviews with Ashley Highfield, Microsoft UK's MD & VP of our Consumer & Online division, he talks about the premise behind the new video experience, why it's different and what it means for advertisers.

Microsofts Chris Pendleton , the technical evangelist for Bing Maps, led a fascinating panel at South By Southwest on Sunday morning with map experts from Foursquare, Twitter, Navtec and Flickr talking about the future of mapping. The panelists discussed their anticipated future at which online maps are overlaid with more and more data: personal history of places youve been, social history of places your friends have been, and cultural history data of locations.

Some of the things we're doing with social media, sometimes in pursuit of profit, and sometimes in pursuit of more altruistic efforts to improve online community, can have some  significant and unexpected consequences for users in terms of privacy expectations. That point was driven home by danah boyd of Microsoft Research in her keynote presentation for South By Southwest interactive on Saturday. I'll post the video link for danah's talk when it's published.

Ill be in Austin on Friday for the South By Southwest Interactive conference. Its my first time at the conference but Microsoft has a great presence at SXSW again this year. Microsofts own danah boyd , an expert in social networking research, will be the opening keynote speaker on Saturday. Chris Pendleton of Bing Maps will present a panel on Augmenting Maps with Reality on Sunday . Bing Maps has a lot of great new features and youll want to see how these are being used.

Below is a list of Microsoft speakers that will be out in force imparting marketing insight and best practice at OMMA Global in San Francisco next week. The event will be trying to answer some burning questions: What effect will an UNBOUND Web have on advertising and marketing? How will GPS-enabled geo-targeting change the way marketers and brands interact with consumers, and ultimately, what brands they consume? As we become connected everywhere, all the time,

Just back from holiday to find that those fine folks at Search Engine Watch have posted a video interview I did with Lisa Myers from Verve Search after her Social Media 101 session at SES London. In 2 minutes Lisa tells us where companies should start, that it's not all about Twitter and Facebook, and how not to get swept away by the phenomenon.

Digital has never been more important for brands that are seeking to communicate and engage with their customers, this is especially true when speaking in terms of purchase decision-making and brand perception. As digital media battles for its share of cash and eyeballs in an increasingly saturated market, advertisers find themselves faced with the age old challenge of demonstrating return-on-investment )ROI( to their colleagues in the boardroom,

Weve been blogging a lot about digital creativity , and we cant get enough of some of the great online execution opportunities that brands present us in the display field everyday. On our advertising site, we have an Ad Gallery which showcases some innovative advertising campaigns and includes some demos of what the ads looked like in situ. My favourite is the one for Bahamas Air. Nice placement for those looking to take a break perhaps?

Last Thursday )February 25 th (, the Marriott Marquis in New York City's Times Square played host to the 2010 Online Media, Marketing and Advertising )OMMA( Behavioral Targeting Conference. The event was attended by a mix of direct advertisers, interactive agencies, publishers, networks and data/analytics vendors. Overall, the event proved to be a great barometer for the US )and international( market's appetite for targeting â€" and advertising â€" to audiences online.

Continuing with the conference's theme of transformation, Darren Huston, CVP of Consumer and Online, Microsoft shared his thoughts what agencies and advertisers can do to stay ahead of the transformation. He compared it to the much needed forest fire that clears the old trees to give room for the new growth. Creating the movie " Avatar ", which took 5 years and hundreds of millions of dollars, is one recent example of ground-breaking transformation.

Is this the year of mobile? Thats a question Ive been asked every year since I joined Microsoft in 2005. And while Im not a medium, what I will say is that the increasing use of mobile phones for everyday tasks like surfing the web, social networking, reading the news, watching video and searching has created a new vigour amongst marketers keen to harness the power of targeting consumers on the move. At Microsoft Advertising we have a number of ways to get into mobile,

It seems that there is not a conference nowadays that does not include a social media track or session. And that's great - many marketers are realizing that social media is just as important as TV, radio, web or other forms of media. This year the organizers of 4A Transformation 2010 brought a great speaker, Jeff Hayzlett, CMO and VP, Eastman Kodak Company to speak about how his company transformed through the power of social media. In cowboy boots and with a Southern accent,

Transformation. What images does it bring to your mind? Change, excitement, new things, improvement over the current state, a little bit of anxiety about the unknown, growing pains, a Chevy Camaro from the movie "Transformers". After listening to a few sessions and talking to several folks in the crowd, my impression of the conference so far is "cautious optimism". On one hand, Nancy Hill, the president of 4A's,

Greetings from the 4A Transformation 2010 conference in San Francisco. One of the first presentations of the conference was a joint presentation by representatives of the magazine industry - Time Inc., Hearst Corporation, Meredith Corporation, Wenner Media, and Conde Nast. The speakers aimed to dispel several myths about the industry, the value it delivers to consumers and advertisers, and the relative value compared to other forms of media.

I'm David Pugh-Jones, a Brand Strategist working in the Global Creative Solutions Team for Microsoft Advertising. Effectively I'm a digital architect and evangelist for creative solutions focusing on ideation, craft and concept right through to the delivery of integrated and immersive brand experiences. Following on from Mel's recent posting , over the coming weeks myself and some of my colleagues will be adding our thoughts and insights from the world of creativity.

When I was growing up, cutting coupons from the newspaper was a Sunday morning ritual. My mom cut coupons while drinking her morning coffee. There's a lot of news right now how coupon redemption is up for the first time in 14 years, but it's not through the newspaper, Moms are getting these coupons online. For kids today, that Sunday morning ritual is no longer Mom with her scissors and the newspaper, but instead with her laptop, and it's whenever Mom is online.