NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- A growing number of big marketers have circumvented the middleman and launched their own mainstream media and entertainment properties. The revolutionary development that has moved them into direct competition for audiences with traditional media companies. But are these projects just novel anomalies -- as some suggest -- or a powerful trend that will ultimately reshape the very media business itself? Ad Age editor Jonah Bloom addresses the issue in his talk at the ANA annual conference in Phoenix.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The London-headquartered WPP Group is the world's largest advertising holding company with annual revenues of $14 billion. Its sprawl of holdings includes iconic ad agencies like Grey Worldwide, JWT, Ogilvy & Mather, and Young & Rubicam. During the last few years, CEO Martin Sorrell has been been orchestrating the reorganization and reinvention of the global marketing services giant. And in an appearance at the New York Ad-Tech conference, Sorrell spoke at length about China and his world strategy. This video is an eight-minute segment of those comments.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Along with being the world's largest advertising holding company, WPP Group has built itself into the fourth largest business research company -- trailing only Thomson-Reuters, Bloomberg and Nielsen. One area of market data in which CEO Martin Sorrell has taken a particular interest is that regarding cost cutting by large marketers around the globe. He warned the recent Ad-Tech conference in New York about the long-term results of today's draconian cuts in marketing service budgets.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- No other subject has become as much of a hot button in the ad industry as procurement. Marketers' ROI mania and growing use of procurement officers to purchase marketing services has pushed down agencies' operating margins. But has it gone too far? Speaking at the ANA Annual Conference in Phoenix, Ad Age editor Jonah Bloom questions whether the process has lost a sense of balance and is ignoring the crucial need of agencies to invest in the services, technology and talent required to promote brands in this fragmented age.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- How is Eddie Murphy playing an invisible role in the new push to diversify ad agencies? Former agency account exec Lincoln Stephens is both an example and an evangelist of this Hollywood phenomenon. A year ago Stephens abruptly quit his Chicago agency job, moved back to his hometown of Dallas and, on a shoestring budget, personally launched a program to recruit, train and motivate college-age African Americans for advertising agency jobs.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- When Rob Belgiovane set out from his Australian agency for the China Ad Festival in Nanning he expected to fly into a small town near the Vietnamese border. Instead, he found himself in a city the size of New York that remains largely unknown to westerners. And the sprawling metropolis was a dramatic example of the wide open market for retailers and agencies that China has become. Ad Age Hong Kong Bureau Chief Normandy Madden was on hand to record Belgiovane's startled impressions of the world's new wild west of advertising.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- In 2004, when he frantically danced his way into the public consciousness, the oddly engaging Mr. Six became one of the country's best-known brand icons. But in late 2005, the amusement park company's new management dumped the campaign, calling its creative concept "misguided." This spring, as Six Flags slipped into a bankruptcy reorganization, the dancing octogenarian was back again with a vengeance. SVP of marketing Angelina Vieira Barocas discusses the turnaround in thinking as well as Mr. Six's future

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- WPP Group CEO Martin Sorrell not only thinks the contraction of the newspaper and magazine industry will continue, but that it NEEDS to continue. In keynote remarks that opened this week's Ad-Tech in New York, Sorrell cited the over-capacity of supply and inventory as a major problem holding back the re-stabilization of the media business. He also predicted that ad agencies would be getting "very much more involved" in the development of content and that the lines between advertising and editorial are going to get "much more blurred" than they already are today.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- In past jobs, Jim Harris has been a proponent of "hyper-local" marketing strategies that takes place in the lobbies of office buildings. So it's no surprise he's made that an anchor of the new Wall Street Journal Office Network. As CEO of that three-year-old company, he oversees a broadcast network of digital screens in more than 800 upscale office buildings in fifteen cities. And this past year, his company has posted a 100% increase in revenue and become a case study in how to boost sales by pairing digital screen ads with in-building product demos.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- MasterCard was an early mover in the apps space with its ATM Hunter and now, as the company celebrates the twelfth year of its famed "Priceless" ad campaign, it's brought out a new app to match called "Priceless Picks." In this video program we take both apps for a live-action, on-screen test drive and chat with MasterCard Worldwide CMO Larry Flanagan.