• by Jack Feuer , March 4, 2009

I pulled out for the first time last week, and it hurt like hell.

The Big Easy beckoned, my first return to New Orleans for the 4As conference "in about a half a decade," and I was pumped. Anybody who knows me knows about the long love affair I have had with this town. I'd sell my son for a ticket to southern Louisiana.(OK, I'd sell my son for a Twinkie. But you know what I mean.)

And the last time was classic. I saw Burtch Drake boogying on Bourbon Street. I spent a night in a strip club with middle managers from every media agency in America. I went through about two dozen go cups.

But since then, there's been Katrina. And a recession that's really a Depression, but none of the candy asses running our economy, government or media has the stones to say it.

So I couldn't rustle up the economic justification to make the trip. Then one of my best dawgs, an agency bigshot and an honorary son of the Crescent City, said his shop was retrenching, hard, and so he wasn't going, either. If you can't party in New Orleans with this guy, you might as well just stay home in Bergenfield or Brooklyn or Fairfield or wherever and watch exhibition baseball.

Or in my case, in Thousand Oaks, with a fifth of Jose Cuervo, a 12-pack of Pacifico, the Playboy Channel, and some limes. So I pulled out. Canceled my reservation at the riverside Hilton and spent the weekend in a depressed, drunken stupor.

Chers, if the landscape is so bad that even I can't justify a jaunt to Nawlins, we're screwed sideways. My agency friends tell me the buzz is that this year's attendance could be as low as 600--half of last year's congregation.

Not that I'm going to miss any breakthroughs. This is the 4As. The one year when we really need some steak, they're serving up--understanding consumers better!

No, I am not kidding. That's the theme of this year's show.

Who's programming this posse, Keanu Reeves?

Look, I have nothing against consumers. I am one. And there will be several consumer panels, which I think is hands-down the best kind of research, unfiltered, unguarded and often revelatory.

But we're in crisis here, for Christ's sake.

There's nothing about business anywhere that's usual. You'd think the group that represents the first people clients turn to in a crisis would know they need a conference that reflects that--and spring into emergency action.

Burn the agenda and instruct every keynoter, moderator and panelist. Tell the consumers on the panels that despite the titles of their respective presentations, this year there will be one topic and one topic only: How do we survive this?

What should marketing and media do to help--not exploit, not engage, but actually help--all of us get through this catastrophe?

Those of you who are going to the 4As are down there already or on your way. But if I were you, I'd either start that conversation as soon as I got off the plane, or demand it in every session I attended.

Unfortunately, I'll have to cheer you on in absentia. I'm still too sore to walk.