Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas/Happy New Year

I've been trying to come up with the perfect end of 2007 post and I don't know quite what the topic should be. Christmas is a strange thing for me this year. I don't particularly want anything—save for a replacement for my beloved, now apparently moth-eaten navy blue DKNY sweater—and I see that as a rather happy state of affairs. I had a lot of professional and family-related things I wanted to accomplish in 2007, and, frankly, I've been walking around in a dream-like state for much of the year because so many them have happened. I'm working with people I really like and who are smart and thoughtful and considerate, I got my real estate license (I'm from a family of real estate brokers and even in this market, it just made sense), the kids are doing great, and, oh, I have this little blog that people are actually reading. Of course, my goal for 2008 is that there's more of you, but I've enjoyed our conversation so far and look forward to keeping it going next year.

Before I close down for probably the rest of the year—still too many Christmas things to get done and one assignment due before the Big Day—here's what I'd hope for the advertising business next year. Seemed that 2007 was the most watershed-dy in a series of watershed years. You simply never hear of campaigns anymore that aren't some combination of digital and other media, and that's a good thing. I don't believe that the industry in any way has caught up to consumers' appetite for the Internet, but at least digital is not the sad stepchild anymore. So what I wish for the industry is that it accelerate its pace of change, and not necessarily by snapping up any shop that makes a claim to digital advertising expertise. (There was way too much of that this year. Way too many headlines about huge holding companies buying little digital something-or-others that no one has ever heard of.) In reality, the only way the pace of change will accelerate is for everyone in advertising to either change their mindsets or get out of the business. We all know that there are thousands of ad execs who find all of the changes to the advertising marketplace scary; all they really want to do is retire before the grim digital reaper comes and cuts them out of the business before their time. It's a peculiar attitude, because the changes that everyone was speculating about for much of the last 15 year or so have actually happened, and the old days are decidedly not coming back. Time to just jump in the pool. If an English and Latin major can do it (like me), than anyone is capable of it. Then again, I was on the swim team.

Oh, there's one other thing that I hope for the ad business in 2008: that TBWA/Chiat/Day find more uses for the Berries 'n' Creme lad.