• by Masha Geller , February 13, 2002

It’s that time of year again. The one time a year the elite of the advertising media industry gets together at the American Association of Advertising Agencies’ Media Conference and puts all of us Internet advertising fanatics into our proper place.

At no other advertising conference does an online ad professional feel more insignificant and more juvenile than here, amidst the people with hundreds of billions of ad dollars to spend, accounting systems that make sense and standards that everyone involved actually adheres to. Not to mention decades of history and experience.

The conference officially started this evening in surprisingly chilly Orlando, attracting nearly 800 attendees, almost 80 exhibitors and Pulitzer Prize winning humor columnist Dave Barry as the opening reception speaker who, to the overwhelming delight of the audience, openly quipped that the Internet is still the best way to waste time.

All jokes aside, however, the real-world advertising industry is truly beginning to admit to the fact that the Internet is worthy of some attention. Unlike years past, show organizers have planned a program that does include a few discussions of the Internet as an advertising medium, tiny slice of the ad pie that it is.

The show’s only online-related sessions are “E-Commerce for the Advertising Industry,” an email marketing workshop, and “Interactive Media Buying.”

I’ll have all the details for you tomorrow, but for now the only phrase I keep turning over in my mind is, “we have a long way to go.”