• by September 13, 2004

ADVERTISING WEAK -- Has anyone else noticed the schism that's been building between the creative and media sides of the advertising business? Lately, it's grown into more of a chasm. The most obvious example of that is next week's Advertising Week hoopla in New York, where there are scores of events - many competing directly with each other - celebrating the creativity of the ad business. But there's only one we know of that actually celebrates the creativity in the media side of the business. We say this unabashedly, because it happens to be one being hosted by MediaPost. The Creative Media Awards. The awards, which we like to call the CMAs, will acknowledge creativity in 13 individual media categories: TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, outdoor, online, new/emerging media, branded entertainment, media planning, multicultural media, business media, communications planning and, yes, even creative. It seems some media shops are actually making ads these days. Imagine that.

Okay, so you've heard us plug this event before. "Why are we doing it again," you kvetch? Well aside from making the MediaPost marketing team happy, its come to our attention that some media shops may be a bit disappointed with Advertising Week's bias toward the creative department. In fact, one of the many releases put out by the American Association of Advertising Agencies over the past few weeks, touted the AAAA's Creativity Conference as the "centerpiece of Advertising Week." Well, we're not naming any names, but some big media agencies say they are somewhat displeased by the stepchild status of media during Advertising Week and plan to make their displeasure know.

It seems the AAAA would just as soon relegate attention to media service to its annual Media Conference and Trade Show. And we'd probably be afraid to mention that fact if we were scheduled to speak at this year's Media Conference, but seeing as we're not, what the heck. Actually, that's pretty much happened to the executive recruiters at Talent Zoo, when they sounded off about the spectacle associated with Advertising Week in critical opinion column posted on the Talent Zoo website.

In a series of email exchanges played out and posted on Talent Zoo's website, the AAAA "rescinded" an invitation for Talent Zoo executives to speak at the AAAA's 2005 Media Conference. Following a report of the brouhaha in Monday's Wall Street Journal we hear the AAAA has reinstated Talent Zoo's invitation to speak at the Media Conference. Meanwhile, we won't be holding our breath waiting for the AAAA to extend one voluntarily to the Riff.

Speaking of the rightful ascendancy of media services, we couldn't help noting Advertising Information Services' (AIS) decision on Monday to change its name to Media Information Services (MIS). The reason, said the company, is "the new name more accurately reflects the company's mission: to provide unrivaled information services to media agencies, broadcasters, advertisers and advertising agencies." In that order.

"After 40 years of expansion, the company has become much more than an advertising services company," said MIS President Lorraine Antoniello. "We now provide vital information to all types of media companies and the new name better represents the future of our business."

Earlier this year, the company made the strategic decision to divest itself of its commercial archiving division and relinquish the AIS name, which led to erroneous reports that the entire company had been purchased. In fact, as part of this divestiture, the company reorganized and re-branded, creating a new look and a new name.