Some things make me proud to be a marketer. Some make me sigh. Still others make me wince. All were on full display last week at the 2011 Edge Conference, sponsored by the Ad Club of Boston.

This annual event is designed to showcase innovations in branding. In a series of posts I’ll offer a highly subjective summary of highlights and lowlights, focused perhaps more on what they say about the current state of marketing—and humanity—than the actual items in question. Let’s start at the bottom and work our way up.