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Recently, I had the opportunity to join in a conversation with top marketing executives from companies such as Bank of America, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Mercedes-Benz USA and Xerox at the 5th annual Forbes CMO Summit in Palm Beach, FL. The topic of discussion was “Preparing for Growth,” and how companies can work to rebuild their brands and boost sales as the economy begins to stabilize and grow.

I broke my presentation into 4 parts: Observations, Predictions, Challenges, and Suggestions. I’ve outlined them below.

I guess the Internets has done the same thing for unsigned artists as it has for moonlighting authors. More and more bloggers are seeing their creativity pay off not only in traffic, but also in book deals:

Stuff White People Like

Stuff On My Cat

I Can Has Cheezburger?

Hot Chicks With Douchebags

Tucker Max (NSFW, unless you have a conveniently inward-facing desk.)

Tiny Art Director

Keep reading about the Stuff Everyone Likes: cold-hard cash.

The latest Snickers ads with Master P and Patrick Ewing got me thinking why this hasn’t happened more often.

Have you ever received a creative brief that left you scratching your head for great ideas? Me neither. But in a hypothetical case where that were to ever happen to you, this seems to be a fix-all solution to keep in your desk drawer.

What solution you may ask? Insert “has-been” celebrity*

Nothing breaks through the clutter more than content with an old celebrity. Currently, the leading benefactor of this advertising band-aid has to be MC Hammer. Mr. Hammer has promoted everything from Nationwide Insurance to ESPN Monday Night Football. He was even featured in Cash4Gold’s Super Bowl spot this past February. Seriously, he has become the Peyton Manning of former celebs. While I know his cameos help solve his past money issues, I wonder why Hammer won’t share the spotlight or better yet why haven’t brands moved on to other faded stars?

There are plenty of out of work former celebs that would make for great advertising.

Generally, Hollywood is one of the first to latch onto whatever the latest trend becomes in marketing and technology. Trailers helped pave the way for online video. Studios were amongst the first to push the boundaries of mobile. TV shows embraced online communities and blogs well before most. But they seem to be lagging in one crucial new trend – transparency. Big brands have slowly started to open up. Even the new government is on board. But Tinseltown seems more reluctant than anyone to embrace the idea beyond a few behind the scenes features and a gag reel on the DVD.

Another Super Bowl brings the time-honored tradition of Ad People giving their two cents on what spots made the most of their $3 million and we’re no exception to this.

This week’s 140 Characters takes a look at what made us laugh, cry, throw things, and demand that people put down the guacamole and chicken fingers and get ready to rock.