Substance and Sizzle: Industry Groups Are Delivering - Michael Kassan - MediaBizBloggers

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In 1965, Don Draper tried to position his fictional shop, which just lost its signature cigarette business, as an anti-tobacco agency in a New York Times ad.

In 1975, Jay Chiat and Guy Day, miffed that their real-life shop lost client Honda to Needham, Harper & Steers after a review, ran a print ad which defiantly dumped all over the ad industry's pitch system.

We don't know yet whether the fictional Times ad will save Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. But the real-life Honda spread became a much-mentioned metaphor for the soaring self-confidence and in-your-face creative excellence that characterized the Chiat/Day brand.

I've been thinking a lot about the ultra-fine line between a breathing brand and a positioning that's dead on arrival these days, particularly after the conclusion of last week's sterling Association of National Advertisers "Masters of Marketing" pow-wow.

I was impressed by the smashing attendance of 1,600. I was fulfilled by the program, jammed with strong ideas and good insights. And I was particularly fascinated by the emphasis on purpose-driven marketing—which sounds an awful lot like old-school branding redirected for a 21st century ecosystem.

Sure, it's still hard for communications entities to differentiate themselves. Yes, the old bugaboos and the new threats remain. Yet as I tallied up this year's industry conferences and seminars, I realized that something truly celebratory happened in 2010: our collective brand came back.

Communications is up off the mat. Not exactly thriving again, but no longer down for the count. And I think we ought to thank our industry's trade groups for the good news.

No, I'm not joking.

You and I have traveled the world attending conferences and sitting in seminars in search of a relevant, actionable idea, particularly in recent years when digitalization, recession and other Signs of the Ad Apocalypse beat us like a conga. And for far too long, our industry gatherings have, frankly, mostly failed us in that quest.

Golf opportunities? Plentiful. Help in our businesses? Not so much.

In New York, L.A., London, Cannes—anywhere and everywhere we've gathered, we've borne witness to Winston Churchill's famous observation that success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.

That is, until now.

There was this week's powerful commemoration of the ANA's 100th birthday. Last month, Advertising Week was bursting with what we've been craving: insight, new ideas, and all the good stuff you go to something like this for but almost never get.

Cannes last summer was just as good. And the 4A's conference in San Francisco in March was terrific as well.

We had a lot of good weeks in 2010. Efficacy was the rule, not the exception, in this year's business gatherings and it bodes well going forward—where we're going to need all the help we can get

Our trade associations have stepped up and accepted the looming challenges of transformation. And they've done it, by the way, without sacrificing the parties on the Croisette, dinners in New Orleans and parades down sodden New York streets starring the AFLAC duck that make our industry so much more fun to work in than any other.

We should acknowledge the work of Bob Liodice at the ANA, Nancy Hill at the 4A's, Matt Scheckner at Advertising Week and all the other dedicated pros who work with them. Add to that list Randall Rothenberg of the Interactive Ad Bureau, whose MIXX conferences continue to impress and fill the house. We don't hesitate to give them grief. We should be just as quick to give them credit.

It's not all smooth sailing, of course. In our industry, it never will be. As the noted business theorist Henny Youngman once advised, "If at first you don't succeed…so much for skydiving." But at least this year, the parachute opened.

Still, I'm not taking out an ad. I may tweet about it, though.

Michael E. Kassan is Chairman and CEO of MediaLink, LLC, a leading Los Angeles and New York City-based advisory and business development firm that provides critical counsel and direction on issues of marketing, advertising, media, entertainment and digital technology. Michael can be reached at michael@medialinkllc.com

Read all Michael's MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Michael Kassan - MediaBizBloggers.

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