• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 4, 2009

So here we are. Back in the Big Easy. But living is looking anything but. The last time I was in New Orleans was at the last Four As media conference held in this very same location. That was before Katrina. Not sure what I was expecting, but things haven’t exactly gotten off on an upbeat note. Coming in late last night, the city seemed more closed up than I remember. But maybe it’s because the Four As show comes a week after Mardi Gras, and the denizens are still hung over.

Anyway, the few conversations I’ve had so far today were all on a downer note. The turnout at the show, I’m told, is less than half what it normally attracts.

I ran into my old friend, and former colleague, Chuck Ross, who now is publisher and editorial director of Crain’s TV Week, a trade magazine that has been especially hard hit by the economy, and by the downturn in ad spending within the TV industry.

Chuck and I spent some time hashing out what the near and long-term future might hold for our sector of B-to-B media, and we both came away thinking it was something akin to one of the sub themes of the Four As show: Project Reinvention.

We know that traditional display advertising revenues â€" both online and in print â€" are being challenged by cyclical economics, but I told Chuck I think it is something far more fundamental â€" and that it actually is a shift in thinking away from a conventional advertising orientation. I believe we were heading this way before the recession was officially acknowledged, and I think the psychology surrounding the sagging economy is only accelerating it.

For the past several years, our industry has been undergoing a philosophical transformation from its roots of brand oriented advertising to one of performance-based media. Yes, that was always part of Madison Avenue’s DNA, and direct response has always been the uncelebrated stepchild of branding. But the super accountability of digital media and the dynamic flow of return path data have swung things around, and I truly believe performance is calling the shots these days, and branding will be lucky to have a seat the table. This is something we’re going to drill deeply into during MediaPost’s OMMA Global conference in L.A. at the end of the month, and especially on what the long-term implications are for branding in a super accountable world of immediate response metrics.

Personally, I think it will only go so far until we wake up one day and realize that the thing people like responding to the most, is something called brands.