Here is a look at some standout brand-building and advertising communications stories that caught our attention this week:

Rethinking Strategy, Planning & Agency Roles

• The Future of Ad Agencies & Social Media
• What’s Next in Digital?
• 5 Things to Do at the Wake (of the Web)
• How Do Agencies Move Upstream?
• How Tomorrow’s Consumer is Changing How We Buy, Sell & Consume
• What Does Advertising Do?
• MIT’s Handbook of Collective Intelligence
• Welcome to the Decade of Games
• The Pop-Up Agency
• Harley-Davidson, Victors & Spoils and the 21st Century
• Most Advertising is Superstitious (as are labels)…so Don’t Let Yourself be Labeled
• The iPad and the Benefits of a Blank Slate
• How LEGO Built a Brand – & Business – with Community
• What’s Your Social Lens? Engagement Frameworks
• The Anatomy of Determination
• Greatest Hits of TED Videos

Some Ideas Specifically Pertaining to the Future of Retail

• Method: Changing Retail Currency
• A Reality Check for Retailers
• Amazon Tries to Cut Frustration Over Packaging
• Burberry’s Conquest of Cyberspace

Innovation, Creativity, New Brand Work

• The Secret of Creativity: An Oblique Perspective
• Zero Waste Creativity
• Light a Candle for 9.11 (via Foursquare)
• YouTube Time Machine
• Uniqlo’s Lucky Machine
• Nokia N8 TV Ad
• Samsung’s ‘Use Your Influence’
• The Perrier Mansion (Perrier by Dita)
• Sony’s ‘Imagine Football in 3D’
• Audi One Cultural Achievement Award
• IKEA’s Herding Cats
• Ogilvy & Mather’s First Editions
• Rural Urbanism: Rethinking Happiness
• Pac-Man Performed in Stop Motion with Humans as Pixels

Digital Media & Marketing News

• The Thin Line Between Liking a Brand and Liking Its Social Marketing
• The Future of Social Objects
• Context is King: the Web of Intent is Coming
• How Algorithms Can Revolutionize Social Media Marketing
• Google Display Advertising: Watch This Space
• Google Instant Launch
• Google Wave ‘In a Box’
• Facebook Adds ‘Social Context’ Metric for Advertisers
• 5 Tips for Running an Effective Facebook Page
• A Great User Experience Extends Beyond the Website
• 3 Essential Ingredients of a Successful Viral Campaign
• A Radical Proposal to Save Advertising on the Web
• Why Persuasive Design Isn’t Enough to Influence Change
• On Downloading More Apps than Songs from iTunes