Top Story

• Traditional execs earn twice as much as digital counterparts
  Traditional ad-agency executives and creatives are billing clients at about twice the rate of their digital counterparts, whose average rate is about $350 an hour, according to a 4A's report. Advertising Age (tiered subscription model) (8/6)     

Trendwatch

• Procter & Gamble goes for digital gold
  Procter & Gamble's broad-based digital campaign linked to the London Olympics is part of an effort to reduce its marketing costs without reducing its brands' clout. The company is sponsoring E!'s online and mobile coverage of the Games, running pre-roll video ads for several of its brands, and launching Facebook and Twitter campaigns tied to the London Games. Adweek (8/3)     

• Would Yahoo! be better off without banner ads?
  Yahoo! should stop sacrificing its top on-screen real estate to banner ads, and shift to content-led ads -- promoted videos, playlists, trends and so on -- that are native to each site's user experience, argues Dan Greenberg. That would play to the site's strengths and allow the company to cash in on brands' own content-led marketing strategies. "The kicker? I'm confident you could pull this off without having an impact on long term advertising revenue," Greenberg writes. TechCrunch (8/4)     

Getting the Word Out

• Why brands shouldn't neglect search
  It can be difficult for digital marketers to justify search campaigns, but brands shouldn't neglect the medium, according to an eMarketer report. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. Web users log onto search engines at least once per day, so search ads play an important role not just in generating traffic and sales, but also in brand-building, the report notes. eMarketer (8/6)     

• Marketers entertain and inform mobile users
  With consumers shifting media consumption to mobile devices, successful marketers are finding they can reach users by being informative and entertaining. Food marketers, for example, can be informative with recipes and shopping lists; brands can entertain by offering games that connect to the brand position. iMedia Connection (8/6)     

Developer Update

• Meet the world's top computer programmer
  Google search engineer Petr Mitrichev is officially the best computer programmer in the world. He's held that title since 2005 after climbing the rankings through competitive coding events, including a 2011 victory at Facebook's inaugural Hacker Cup. "The beautiful aspect is that it's totally automatic and there is no human judgment involved at all. It's one of the fairest competitions I've ever seen," he says. MIT Technology Review (8/2012)     

Design Corner

• Got designer's block? These websites are here to help
  Sometimes websites that offer tools for designers are also inspiringly well-designed, writes Gisele Muller. The 22 elegant sites profiled here include Responsify, a browser-based tool for creating responsive templates; iconmonstr, which has a bumper pack of free icons; and ProjectFlow, which helps designers organize and keep track of their projects. WebDesignLedger.com (8/6)     

Small Businesses & Entrepreneurs

• The e-mail signature block is valuable ad real estate
  Don't overlook the valuable marketing real estate in the e-mail signature block, writes Lee Polevoi. Add to the usual company information -- which should include the website and blog address -- social media links, special offers and newsletter opt-ins. Don't let Apple co-opt your space with a "Sent from my iPad" ad. Change that line to something that promotes your business, while avoiding overindulgence and HTML formatting that won't make it through to every inbox. Intuit Small Business Blog (8/2)     

Hot Topics

Top five news stories selected by readers in the past week.

• Company claims 80% of Facebook ad clicks come from bots (CNET)

• How to get your employees active on social sites (Marketo)

• Digital campaigns deliver the goods, says P&G marketing chief (eMarketer)

• How to create slick laptop mockups in Photoshop (DesignFestival.com)

• Google buys Wildfire, gets Facebook and Twitter ad business (The Wall Street Journal)

• Results based on number of times each story was clicked by readers.

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Success is sweet and sweeter if long delayed and gotten through many struggles and defeats." --Amos Bronson Alcott, American educator, writer and reformer