• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, February 28, 2007

LAS VEGAS -- He may or may not acknowledge it during his opening remarks here today, but this will likely be the last time O. Burtch Drake introduces the American Association of Advertising Agencies' Media Conference & Trade Show.

Drake has made no secret that he plans to retire in early 2008, but word is the AAAA has retained executive recruiter Don Gilbert to cast a wide search for a successor who could be in place by the time the 4As hosts its 2008 Media Conference & Trade Show March 5-8, 2008, at Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando, FL.

That will mark the organization's 15th media conference--an event that has grown into the association's biggest national conference, usurping its annual general conference and spawning a host of other vertical trade conferences dealing with account planning, creativity, new business and account-management issues.

It's projected that 1,500 attendees and 116 exhibitors will participate in this year's media conference--up from just 275 attendees and 40 exhibitors when in held its first event in Jacksonville, Fla., in 1994. That was the same year Drake was named president-CEO of the 4As after serving as its executive vice president and COO. He came in with a mandate to broaden the association's role and constituency.

The expansion of the media conference parallels the rising importance of media--and big shifts in the way agencies and marketers manage it. The conference has also grown in its subject matter, emerging from roots that focused on issues facing smaller and mid-size agency media departments to those affecting giant, unbundled media services networks and major marketers alike.

Over the years, Drake has underscored these shifts during his opening remarks, which on occasion have questioned Madison Avenue's own push toward unbundling--especially the separation of stand-alone media agencies from the distinctly branded roots. At one conference some 10 years ago, Drake noted that even he had a hard time telling the difference among the sea of newly born media services brands, only one of which--Universal McCann--had any connection to its advertising roots.

Since then, the big media networks--like WPP's MindShare, Mediaedge:cia, and MediaCom; Publicis' Starcom MediaVest and ZenithOptimedia; Omnicom's OMD and PHD; and Interpublic's Initiative--have done a good job of branding their own identities, but the questions surrounding the unbundling of media from creative and account planning remain as pronounced as ever.

Drake is expected to remain head of the 4As through May or June 2008. The search for his successor is likely to be closely watched, given the controversy some of the trade press have tried to stir up surrounding the image of the association. Other factors: some of the big issues swirling around Madison Avenue, like the need for great diversity and whether the traditional agency business will remain relevant in the Google era.