Here is a look at some standout brand-building and advertising communications stories that caught our attention this week – as well as some macro trends and themes we’re tracking to:

Strategies & Shifts Reshaping Planning, Branding & Advertising (and Business)

• How To Do Account Planning
• 5 Emerging Disciplines in Influence Planning
• Brand Archetypes
• Psychological Profiles of Twitter Users
• Dan Pink on the Science of Motivation (the role of rewards, incentives)
• 4 Things Video Games Teach Us About Motivating People
• Madison Avenue’s Myopia When It Comes to Main Street
• How Much Money Social Media Sites Can Make You (good data for projections, business cases)
• The Lean Startup Movement: Resources for Agencies Approaching Product Development
• Why Brands Act Schizophrenic: Pit One Audience Against the Other, Lose Both
• Groupon Unprofitable for a Third of Businesses (need a better model for more targeted offers?)
• Watching TV Without Cable (changing media consumption behavior)
• Digital by the Numbers (media consumption data)
• Futurist Nick Bilton Sees Media’s Destiny: Storytelling
• The Rise of the Corporate Transmedia Storyteller
• 19 Brave Thinkers

Innovation, Creativity

• Can We Teach Creative & Critical Thinking?
• Where Ideas Come From
• 4 Game-Changing Trends in Web App Design
• Facebook Innovations (transparency via livestreaming)
• The Physics of Angry Birds (gaming/mechanics)
• How the iPad Will Smarten You Up (applications for retail/fashion)
• Creative Everyone (curated creative events by city)
• Noticings: The Game of Noticing Things Around You (game mechanisms in…everything)
• An Analog Film for a Digital World

Brand Content (for better and sometimes worse)

• Towards Madison Valley: Great examples of branded digital creativity
• Adidas Originals: Stop Motion in the Streets of Paris
• Do Androids Dream of LEGO Mindstorms?
• Girlscouts: World’s Strongest Girl
• Edge Shave Gel’s Random Acts of Kindness (activation around the notion of ‘gifts’)
• Discover the Moon with Gowalla and NASA (locations)
• Corona Light Tempts Facebook Users with Times Square Billboard
• AdKeeper Allows Users to Save Ads for Later (is this driven by consumer demand, or advertiser demand?)
• 5 Best Practices for Advertising in Magazine iPad Apps
• 5 Pillars of Branded Mobile App Development
• Ginger Ale, the Texas Rangers, and Content Marketing

The Impact of a Logo/Brand Identity

• MySpace Quietly Rolls Out New Logo
• The logo of Swissair in History
• Celebrating Great Logo Design (Behance Network)
• Gap Scraps New Logo, Returns to Old Design

Visualizations: Maps, Infographics

• Google Maps API Styled Map Wizard
• Google Developers: 5 Great Styled Map Examples
• City Maps Made Only of Typefaces
• Hottest Pick-Up Spots in NYC & SF

Testing Alternative Search Applications

• Serendipitor (‘serendipitous’ directional search in mobile)
• New Search Engine Can Search the Future (redefining ‘predictive’ search)
• Marissa Mayer’s New Job: Google’s Location & Local Services
• Microsoft Bing Integrates Facebook in Search

Insights On Millennials

• Millennials and Social Media (Euro RSCG Whitepaper)
• Edelman Digital’s 8095 Exchange: Millennials, Their Actions Surrounding Brands, & the Dynamics of Reverberation

Digital Media, Tech & Marketing News & Resources

• The Things People Talk about Most Online
• 71% of Tweets are Ignored
• The Texting Revolution Is Here
• Bit.ly Now Generates QR Codes, Too
• AOL Attempting to Buy Yahoo (who would benefit most? AOL’s content vs. Yahoo!’s, search?)
• Facebook Introduces Comment Voting, Threads
• Marketers Compare Notes on Using Social Media
• Conan O’Brien: King of Social Media?
• Most CEOs Are Not Tapping Into Social Media (& Why)