Last week was Advertising Week, New York City's annual gathering of Mad Men and media mavens from across the globe. Advertising Week brings marketers, agencies, and publishers together to discuss the issues of the day, from the latest advances in audience measurement to the ways in which innovative marketers are approaching social media. Through panels, workshops, expos, and awards ceremonies, Advertising Week provides a forum to discuss, debate, and celebrate the advertising industry and all its players. Here are some highlights from Google and YouTube's participation during the week:

87 cool things to do with YouTube & Google. Andy Berndt, Managing Director of the Google Creative Lab, and Tom Uglow, a Creative Lead in the Lab, took the stage on Monday to present 87 cool examples of Google and YouTube tools in action. We wanted to remind our audience that, while Google and YouTube create tools and platforms, marketers and agencies are the actual architects of their visions. Andy highlighted mashups and annotations, as well as experiments with data usage. Flip through Andy's list and see which examples might spark an idea for your client or brand. (Did you ever think Ohio could be a piano? We sure didn't.)

Rock on. On Tuesday evening, we hosted 700 agency guests at the YouTube Battle of the Ad Bands. After 20,000 votes and video views from the advertising community on the first-ever YouTube Advertising Week channel, six finalists took to the stage. For the second year in a row, McCann Erickson's took home the trophy.

Social Media for Social Change. Later in the week, we co-sponsored a social media panel with the Ad Council. Suzie Reider, YouTube's head of advertising sales and marketing, led a discussion around how innovative thinkers are using social media for the benefit of the global community. The panelists covered everything from Charity Water's use of user-generated videos to R/GA's national public service advertising campaign with The Ad Council, "That's Not Cool." In a week filled with talk about ad spend and metrics, this panel showed the larger, global potential for these new media. (You can view the panel in its entirety on FastForward's YouTube channel.)

The End of Digital Media? At the IAB's MIXX conference, Google's President of Global Sales and Business Development, Nikesh Aurora, took the floor to spoke of the future. During his keynote, he made some predictions: (1) Everything will be localized down to you. Personalization will be the norm, as in this augmented reality application. (2) We'll contribute to the creation of new generations of information. We're now creating new types of information that simply couldn't exist in an analog world -- and they'll all live online. (3) Marketing is the new finance. Data will drive intelligent marketing decisions across media. (4) All advertising will be engaging. "Digital Marketing" will be a redundant, dead term. In the future, all marketing will be digital, personal, engaging, and measurable.

Check out more highlights from the week on the "More" section of the official Advertising Week YouTube Channel. Hope to see you next year!

Posted by Kristin Kovner, Industry Marketing

As consumers become more and more technologically savvy, businesses and marketers have worked quickly to keep up. As a result, many companies are left questioning what they aren't doing that they should be, or what they should do next to stay in front of the right people, in the right place, at the right time, in an increasingly digital world.

To address some of these questions, we have partnered with The Wharton School to launch our Fast.Forward. Channel on YouTube, which highlights insightful perspectives from industry experts and academics on how marketers can stay ahead in the changing landscape. (You might have seen a similar site launched by our UK marketing team in partnership with London Business School earlier this year.)

In over 100 short videos on www.youtube.com/fastforward, industry and academic thought leaders — including Jerry Wind, Lauder Professor at The Wharton School; Nancy Hill, CEO of AAAA; and our very own CEO, Eric Schmidt — share their views and insights on how the marketing world has changed. Perhaps more importantly, the videos also take a look at the implications of those changes for marketers and consumers. These experts tackle topics ranging from the importance of innovation and insights, to the new definition of speed. On the flipside, we also have videos from interviews with everyday folks, where we learn about the roles advertising and online content play in their daily lives.

In addition to the library of videos, the brand channel offers a "barometer" gauging consumer confidence levels and links to free tools designed to help marketers understand the online world a little better, as well as information on the Future of Advertising. A Wharton-led, research-based project, the Future of Advertising aims to explore and address a number of the business and marketing challenges in the current "Advertising Reality", while developing new models and empirical generalizations for advertising.

And given that it is Advertising Week in NYC, we will be filming sessions throughout the week's events (as well as getting some behind the scenes footage) and posting the videos to the Events section of www.youtube.com/fastforward. So if you're interested in hearing what others really think about "advertising", if you want to check out what's happening at Advertising Week, or if you have your own opinion that you'd like to voice, check it out.

Posted by Cindy Goodrich, Google Business Marketing

With Advertising Week less than a month away, we're excited to announce that voting for the YouTube Battle of the Ad Bands is now open. This competition puts the industry's finest -- musically speaking -- in the spotlight for a chance to be known as advertising's rock 'n' roll kingpins.

Last September, McCann Erickson brought down the house and took home the coveted trophy. Who will emerge as this year's champion? Wunderman with their rendition of AC/DC's "Live Wire"? Lowe NY's version of The Kinks's "You Really Got Me"? It's up to you!

RCKBAND, from Digitas, with their own take on a-ha's "Take on Me"

An independent committee from the Association of Music Producers (AMP) has narrowed the field down to 8-10 bands and singers (see official rules and regulations on Advertising Week's site), and your votes will decide which entrants make it to the finals.

So vote for your favorite act on the official Advertising Week YouTube channel until September 7. The bands with the most votes will live out their rock fantasies at YouTube Battle of the Ad Bands at the Highline Ballroom on September 22 in New York.

Posted by Kristin Kovner, Industry Marketing Manager