It has become a bit cliché, but back when The Social Network came out in 2010, Justin Timberlake delivered my favorite movie line of all-time, “A million dollars isn’t cool, you know what’s cool…A billion dollars.”

That line hit home because one year earlier, in 2009, I quit my job and launched a start-up called PK4 Media. I saw flaws in the digital advertising industry and saw a big opportunity.

Having founded advertising’s first omnichannel media company, I’ve seen how the industry has changed — and influenced change. Long gone are the days when marketing meant purchasing a few television spots and magazine ads. As new forms of media emerged over the years, brands created departments around them: print, radio, TV, social media, and so on. But these media silos are now woefully out of date.

The digital marketing world is all about trends — what next big tech milestone or social change will influence the way digital advertisers reach their audiences.

But there’s one trend we’re glossing over. To be fair, it’s not really a trend at all. It’s more of a mainstay, and it’s one of the most important elements to digital marketing success: the marketer-publisher relationship.

As we all recover from a divisive presidential election, it is time to tackle another polarizing topic: the digital video pre-roll ad. We have all tried to watch a 90-second clip on YouTube, only to be confronted by a frustrating, 30-second ad.

Video is one of the fastest-growing ad formats, as it encourages users to engage with a brand and helps them to understand its value proposition. According to a 2016 eMarketer survey, digital video ad spend is expected to tripled from $9.9 billion today to $28 billion by 2020. 

Video is a highly successful medium for reaching consumers; however, the 20% boost in overall Internet-based ad revenue between 2014 and 2015 saw a corresponding increase of only 5% increase in desktop display ads. Most of that growth can be attributed to mobile ads, per Adweek.

The biggest brands in the world represent more than just companies. Brands like Coca-Cola, Ford, and Apple have earned their reputations by embodying a lifestyle, transcending the logo on their products to become part of consumers’ identities.

Of course, it takes more than one successful commercial campaign to achieve that kind of loyalty, especially in an era when consumers are constantly receiving content from a variety of sources. That’s why brands are tapping into omnichannel marketing — it’s an approach as multifaceted as their environment.

The alleged animosity between traditional advertisers and digital marketers has become almost legendary. We hear blow-by-blow reports of what appears to be intense opposition, each side fiercely clinging to their fundamental elements in death grips. It’s wonderfully heady stuff, but the ongoing nature of this battle may be more fiction than fact. As marketing becomes more integrated, the challenges that once separated these would-be rivals are bringing them closer together.

Does it feel like your workplace has a revolving door of new hires? Someone comes in, someone else leaves…you need Dramamine to counteract the dizziness.

Of course, turnover is expected, especially in industries like advertising. But that doesn’t mean we should chalk up attrition to circumstance. Most companies focus on wooing and keeping workers by promoting a robust corporate culture, but that’s a short-term solution. Employers who want to slow workplace erosion need to invest in meaningful benefits with long-game implications.

Emerging technologies always encourage scrutiny and critical analysis, and ad tech is no different.

This discipline has been around for a few years, but it's only recently caught the attention of savvy ad tech agencies. In the era of big data, they've recognized having ad tech company relationships makes them more powerful and attractive to clients.

The age of social media has forced agencies to investigate innovative ways to interact with relevant users, rather than relying on typical broadcast or digital media buys. And the advantages for agencies investing in ad tech are plentiful: 74% of marketers want to work with ad agencies who know how to make use of ad tech.

Since bots and other deceptive programs were developed, they’ve primarily existed to defraud financial institutions or retailers. The bots would pretend to be real, generate fake ad impressions, and then steal money — digital media was merely collateral damage.

But in 2016, the Methbot attack targeted digital media specifically.

Marketing is in the midst of a digital revolution: Traditional advertising continually has to share the stage with newer strategies like omnichannel and fractionalized video content on social media. Determining the strategy that works best for you means reevaluating the demands of your industry and analyzing how your consumers view your media.

Sixteen percent of minority-owned businesses have reported being negatively affected by a lack of access to startup capital, compared with only 10 percent of non-minority business owners.

To combat this, there are plenty of ways for minority entrepreneurs to gain minority-based funding, including special governmental classifications for minority-owned businesses and minority-based grants and loans from the government, venture capitalists, and various other organizations.

Habits are tough to break. And when you’re in a well-established industry, processes often become habitual, and people fall down the “but we’ve always done it this way” hole.

But that doesn’t mean a thriving industry is immune to disruption. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that people who have spent lots of time in a particular industry are typically in the best position to spot holes in the market.