STARRING: Mary Beth Kemp, report co-author and Principal Analyst, Forrester Research (www.forrester.com) Tony Effik, Head of planning, Publicis Modem (www.modemmedia.com). Tony also blogs about the social graph (http://socialgraph.blogspot.com) Forrester Research recently published an 18-page report/detailed thought-piece (http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,43875,00.html) provocatively titled 'The Connected Agency', discussing the model they foresee successful advertising agencies migrating towards to overcome many of the disruptive influences and changes in consumer behaviour we're seeing. Needless to say we were interested in exploring these issues and challenges with one of the authors of the report. And we roped in Tony Effik, planning head at a digital agency, to better understand the ramifications not just for the advertising world but also for brand marketers, and for media, marketing and research agencies. It's not a pretty picture... UPDATE: In the podcast we mention that the report's free. Actually, that's a bit misleading because it's only free to clients - oops! -----FEEDBACK----- Please comment on this podcast: letmetalk *at* gmail *dot* com or call +44(0)7092 074262. -----THANKS----- Freelance media and marketing journalist Jo Bowman for the use of her dulcet tones for the outro. -----MUSIC----- Courtesy of Theatrimus from http://music.podshow.com.

STARRING: Gian Fulgoni, Chairman and co-founder, comScore. As well as popping into see Max during our recent US trip, we also caught up with Gian Fulgoni of comScore in the Chicago office (their HQ is in Virginia where CEO Magid Abraham and much of the engineering team is based). comScore is one of the main providers of internet measurement and competes with Nielsen Online (formerly Nielsen NetRatings), Compete.com, Hitwise, and Quantcast as well as others. That said, comScore and Nielsen are generally considered the bigger boys of the bunch given how often their share data is cited in the media (e.g. monthly shares in the lucrative online search market). The internet measurement sector is very technology-hungry. In the early years, comScore literally ate up millions of dollars to get its IT infrastructure established and working right. It has one of world's largest databases as a result of the oceans of data being sent back daily from panelist PCs (a widget records their internet activity, with their permission, and siphons it, along with detailed transaction data, over to HQ). These efforts were rewarded when, in 2007, comScore was annointed one of 47 technology pioneers at the WEF in Davos. 2007 was arguably a good year for comScore's initial investors. 2007's IPO provided for a much-needed liquidation for this band of investors who backed the firm since 2000, including after the dotcom bust when venture financing virtually dried up. At one point comScore's market cap hit $1bn; it's still pretty amazing to think that a company that has only been trading for around seven years is already worth over half as much as TNS, a widely admired and solid growth firm, but one still largely based around traditional research techniques. In this short chat with Gian, we discuss an area that he's passionate about: why ad. dollars are only slowly moving online. It's that old chestnut: online finally commands a significant amount of consumer attention (compared with other media such as tv), and yet still only commands a fraction of the advertising dollars spent on tv and other mass-market media. We also ask him about whether Facebook is worth the reported $15bn, the conversation having taken place shortly after Microsoft made its investment. comScore is Gian's second business success. Prior to this, both him and Magid led IRI through a period of rapid growth. And in-between, he found time to invest in Gibsons, a successful steak restaurant in Chicago (which we, of course, had to sample - very yummy!).

STARRING: Praveen Gupta, Director and co-founder, Cross-Tab On a recent trip to India we were keen to learn a bit more about the state of the research industry there and were pleased when Praveen Gupta invited us over to Cross-Tab's Bangalore office for a chat. Must admit that not having been to India for a long, long time, we didn't know what to expect in terms of the state of development there. You hear about a sub-continent that is home to both extreme poverty and some of the most technologically advanced organisations in the world as a result of churning out probably more science graduates than anywhere else on earth. Bangalore is one of three cities, alongside fellow southern cities Hyderabad and Chennai, vying for the super high tech crown. There's an incredible buzz as you travel down surprisingly modern streets from the airport. We later learn that the local mayor did this strategically to give the impression that all of Bangalore was like that whereas this is only the case for certain 'key routes'. We got to know about Cross-Tab when we wrote about them hiring a global CEO from Microsoft (Kumar Mehta, a former top executive there). Cross-Tab's claim to fame is both as a pioneer in MR outsourcing and, apparently, 'the only full service online research agency in India'. In this short chat with Praveen, a co-founder and modern-day Indian entrepreneur, we hear about: - MR outsourcing (and how this accidentally became one of their strengths) - Online research in India - The middle class - The super rich - Indian entrepreneurism - The market for MR - Future challenges - Blog mining The full chat with Praveen was quite a bit longer and highly informative and stimulating. We'd like to thank him again for the warm hospitality.

STARRING: Max Kalehoff, previously VP Marketing with Nielsen Online (www.nielsen-online.com) and now VP Marketing with Clickable (www.clickable.com). He blogs at www.attentionmax.com. Max's career to date has covered internet measurement (Media Metrix, comScore), WoM and CGM (Nielsen Buzzmetrics). He's a well known and respected marketing blogger and is passionate about making advertising compelling and relevant (so much so that he moved to online advertising firm Clickable shortly after this conversation). The conversation covers Max's views on engagement, defensive branding and, increasingly an issue, the trade-off between advertising-driven business models and consumer privacy, a la Facebook's Beacon and Google's purchase of DoubleClick. BTW, Max and I briefly met at Nielsen's eery-feeling Manhattan HQ, during a recent US trip. After a relaxing sushi lunch, we headed back to the office to record the above chat and props to Max for making time even though it compromised his prepping for a major client conference.

STARRING: Oliver James, psychologist, author, broadcaster (www.selfishcapitalist.com) An exclusive video of Oliver James, the well known psychologist, author and broadcaster, talking at the recent AQR Trends '07 about his fascinating new book Affluenza. The chat is both thought-provoking and funny, and there's an audience q and a session at the end.

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