Cadbury "Gorilla" signifies the new wave of advertising made possible by many of the significant moments of the past decade

As a decade bookended by recessions, it's hard to say the noughties were particularly nice. But the New Millennium Decade, as some wordsmiths like to refer to it, did have its moments of significance and grand innovation. Here follows a top-10 recount of what we consider to be the most important moments from the worldview of Boards.

Broadband becomes accessible (2000)
Literally everything on this list has in some way been due in some measure to Sir Tim Berners Lee first communication between an HTTP client and a server back in 1990, but that truly came to the fore with the widespread adoption of broadband in the noughties. At its most basic and profound, the Internet and interactivity remade the half-century-old brand/media/consumer relationship: passive became active, monologue became dialogue, and monopoly became choice. But it had been slooow. With cheap, ubiquitous broadband, consumers suddenly had quick access to a near endless new source of entertainment and information, including downloadable music, TV shows and movies. Media cash cows TV and print declined as eyeballs went online, and online promised measurable, accurate ROI without massive media spend. Video sharing became fast, easy and commonplace. Content became king as virals (only possible with fast connections) showed that passive consumers had become active and wildly effective broadcasters. Rich immersive interactive experiences were suddenly possible. Adland for the most part struggled to keep up with the speed of broadband and with it, web change: agencies slowly retooled, with mixed success, for a new media, experimenting with interactive campaigns, integrated departments and more, but found it hard to shrug off old media methods and preconceptions. Production companies hybridized and diversified, puzzled for the first time about their place and purpose. Digital production companies moved into live action territory as faster bandwidth allowed online experiences to became richer and more filmic. It's no coincidence that Sweden, with the world's fastest connections and deepest broadband penetration, has spawned the world's best interactive companies. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The paradigm continues to shift in ways we can't imagine.

The SAG strike (2000)
In May 2000, tensions reached a boiling point when the Screen Actor's Guild finally lived up to its threats and declared a strike. While the deals of the contract negations were complex, as these things tend to be, the main point of contention was residual talent payments. In its quest for better payment for its actors, SAG's move had a lasting - and likely unintended - effect: it opened up with world of international production services, where producers discovered that talent buyout agreements and favorable exchange rates available in foreign countries were a smooth salve to the labor woes at home. Oft referred to as "runaway production" at the time (seems old-timey now, doesn't it?), Canada was in the initial benefactor of this new-found roaming tendency, but now, 10 years later, the world is literally a producer's production oyster. Makes you wonder why SAG, which seemingly stirs the strike pot at every contract deadline, doesn't heed its own cautionary tale: producers are industrious; make their job harder and they'll find a way of doing it easier, with or without you.

9/11 (2001)
September 11, 2001 is one of those days that will live in infamy forever; it's one that truly changed the world, most specifically for North Americans. To say it was one of the most defining moments of the decade for the commercial production and advertising business seems trite when put in a larger context, but it's unquestionably true: when a nation's psyche changes, so too do its communications. While time is known for healing wounds, with two wars still in full swing the knotty legacy of 9/11 lingers, which means that even after over eight years, using the most vicious attack on American civilians in modern memory as an allusion in advertising is still not on (you know who we're talking to). And quite honestly, we don't foresee a day when it ever will be.

Propaganda Films collapses (2001)
Propaganda Films, along with its sister company Satellite, was one of the most significant production companies in the latter quarter of the 20th century. Founded in 1986 by Steve Golin and Joni Sighvatsson, Propaganda had a booming commercial business, formed in 1988 and led by Steve Dickstein, with directorial progeny including David Fincher, Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Brian Beletic, Tom Kuntz and Mike Maguire. The company also cranked out a lion's share of US music videos in the '90s, while its features division boasted a roster of film heavy hitters like Michael Bay, Gore Verbinski, Antoine Fuqua and Alex Proyas, and produced features such as Kalifornia, Wild at Heart, Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. Which is why it was such a shock and disappointment when on Nov 8, 2001, after ownership and management changes, the company closed its doors. That single moment, and its attendant aftermath, defined commercial production for the last nine years. While Golin departed before the ship finally sank, founding Anonymous Content in 2000, the diaspora of hot-shit directors and producers gave us two of the most powerful prodcos of the decade. MJZ found its current core when directors Spike Jonze, Dante Ariola, Tom Kuntz and Mike Maguire (Maguire now with The Directors Bureau) joined, while Smuggler was born out of a partnership between Satellite producer Brian Carmody and Propaganda director Brian Beletic. As well, after departing Propaganda, Dickstein (now global president of The Sweet Shop) went on to launch the US operations of Partizan, and in the UK, the London branch of the Propaganda/Satellite empire became Independent Films. Losing such a pillar in the industry so shortly after 9/11 was an unsettling and destabilizing event at the time; in hindsight, it was one of the most central moments for the US production market as we know it.