By 2017, 85% of the world will be covered by 3G mobile internet and half will have 4G coverage, according to Sony Ericsson. Three billion smartphone users will contribute to data traffic that's 15 times heavier than today's. For more and more consumers, the most important screen will be the tiny one in their pocket.

To put it bluntly, there needs to be more ad spending on mobile, which now comprises only about 1% of budgets, according to a recent study from the consultancy Marketing Evolution. Based on ROI analyses of smartphone penetration, that figure will be about 7%. In five years' time, that number will need to be in excess of 10%.

USER EXPERIENCE IS THE NEW 30-SECOND SPOT User-experience design is too often thought of as a digital-marketing task, ensuring that website and app development meet and ideally exceed usability standards.

A Lexus 2013 ES changes colors, turns on its headlights and exposes its interior as throbbing music plays in this highly interactive print ad in the Oct. 15 Sports Illustrated.

Using a Lexus-created technology called CinePrint, the ad comes to life only when you put an iPad behind the printed page that’s displaying the iPad edition of SI or on lexus.com/stunning.

As the release from Lexus notes, most traditionally “interactive” print ads direct users away from the page (think QR codes.) However, “CinePrint Technology flips that on its head, creating a tactile and visceral connection that brings one closer to the printed page with a multi-sensory experience that combines sight, sound, and touch.”

Students should email me for more information and the application — Allison Mays at allison.mays@martinagency.com or check out our Facebook page – martin agency student workshop.

Noah Brier just gave us a new world of Brand Tags and now Dear Jane Sample has come up with something many of us have always wanted to do, but could never get quite right, the simple art of the Brand Timeline. It’s a way to visualize the brands we interact with over the course of the day. It’s really Brands in Your Day. Planners love this stuff because it’s a nice way to bring thinking to life and it’s great to be able to see the time when brands are being used this could even have media implications for example. Perhaps there’s another version of this which examines the depth and scale of relationships individuals have with brands something relating to distance.

t turns out that “portrait” is a surprisingly accurate description of what she ended up with. From Jane’s Brand Timeline Portrait, we discover that Jane is a woman who flosses, who has a cat, who turns on her TV before she leaves for work in the morning. Jane is a woman who lives in Toronto and takes public transit to work, who drinks beer on a Friday night before going home, smoking up and getting down. There’s been some debate in the comments thread of her post over whether the LG logo followed by several Durexes indicates that she used her phone to make a booty call soon after 10 p.m. Fortunately, the BTP still leaves some details to the imagination.

Brand Timeline Portrait has spread all over the internet.

As an advertising account executive, Jane was perhaps predictably untroubled by the implications of her day in brands. “As a marketer, it just shows that these brands have done a good job of marketing themselves.”

Planners should for example, be expected to be able to: Intelligently interrogate buyer data and apply it to the development of communication strategy Have a least a passing knowledge of some of the fundamental laws of markets and the dynamics of brands Decode tracking data and usefully apply it to the development of strategic recommendations Have point of view on how and when to use quantitative research – and be able to articulate to clients which companies to use and why Interrogate customer segmentation data Commission quantitative projects Write a research recruitment screener Design both qualitative and quantitative questionnaires Know the different the types of both qualitative and quantitative research available, their methodologies, uses, and the suppliers thereof Conduct their own qualitative research Bring to bear an informed understanding of how different kinds of communications work in different kinds of circumstances, for different kinds of brands, across different kinds of channels and touchpoints Develop effectiveness models for campaigns and activity Formulate recommendations on how to evaluate the effectiveness of communications Provide an informed perspective on the new and emergent models of effectiveness Understand the methodological differences between the principle copy-testing suppliers (know your enemy) Evaluate the commercial impact of communications activity Have an understanding of econometric modeling

Just to be clear – the planner is an advertising person. Planners work with research, but in advertising. Ultimately, they must be able to interrogate, synthesize and apply this information and insight to the development of creative work. And that does of course involve the application of intuition and imagination too. For as Stephen King wrote, “the whole process of advertising is not a safe, cautious, step-by-step build-up.”

The skills listed above are not acquired overnight. They take time to develop. And acquiring them can sometimes feel like a long and arduous journey. Sexy and cool it ain’t. The implications should be obvious: If you don’t have a boss who can teach you these craft skills, move on. If as an agency you’re not investing in the craft skills of your planners, you’re failing them. And if as a planner you’re not interested in acquiring the craft skills and find it all a bit tedious, you’re failing yourself. Worse, you’re in the way.