Thoughts to ponder in an air-conditioned room.

The more complicated the world of marketing becomes, the easier it is to see how to organize your strategy to achieve your goals. Here are some things worth remembering:

1. Advertising will forever co-exist with social media. They need each other. Social influence media can share and inform in a setting that shuns outright persuasion. Advertising persuades even better with insights and relationships derived from social media. For the marketer to succeed, the answer isn't one or the other; it's all of the above.

2. Advertising should create relationships, too --- and good advertising does. The kind of relationships that can help us understand a brand, not just highlight it. What are the real differences between Bud and Miller, Dior and Gucci, Chevy and Ford, Bebe and Guess? Can you imagine a salesperson not knowing the answers?

3. Good advertising isn't always based on humor, but it's always human. Good advertising is a conversation, between someone with an interest or need, and someone with something of value to sell. And like all conversations, advertising can be prickly, pokey or provocative; funny, folksy, friendly or informative --- but somehow it must be convincing. To do that, it has to be interesting.  Think of your next ad as a letter to someone you know (and like). An ad has to be, in a way, a thoughtful valentine.