• by February 28, 2005

THE BIG UNEASY - What will be on the mind of top media planners, buyers and media agency managers when they meet in New Orleans this week for their annual trade show? Well, we won't know the answer to that until later this week when the American Association of Advertising Agencies releases the results of a pre-show survey leading into its annual Media Conference. But we do have the questions - nine of them:

1 - What is the first issue the new FCC director should address? Media ownership? Indecency? Enforcing the switch to digital by TV stations? Spam?

2 - How does your company's forecast for 2005 compare to 2004? Better? Worse? About the same?

3 - Will the New England Patriots win next year's Super Bowl? Yes? No? Who cares?

4 - What will be the hottest advertising medium in 2005? Magazines? Newspapers? Online? Out-of-Home? Yellow Pages? In-store? Network radio? Local radio? Satellite radio? Broadcast network TV? Cable network TV? Broadcast local TV? Cable local TV? Syndicated TV? On-demand TV? Branded content?

5 - Will Hilary Clinton get the Democratic nomination for President in 2005? Yes? No?

6 - What keeps you awake at night? Accountability? Workload? Staffing? The future?

7 - Is there too much "product placement?" Yes? No?

8 - How many AAAA Media Conferences have you attended?

9 - When will total communications planning happen? Now? 2006? Never?

In some ways, these questions are almost as interesting as the answers that will be revealed this week.

They speak to key anxieties on the minds of media shops, including accountability, media consolidation, workloads, media/advertising efficacy, the underlying health of the media economy. A quick glance at the planned agenda for the conference, which runs Wednesday through Friday, will reaffirm the same. This is an anxious lot. Thank goodness they'll be holed up in the Big Easy where it will be easy to lighten the load, if only for a day or two.

AND NOW FOR A FEW QUESTIONS OF YOUR OWN - Speaking of the AAAA's Media Conference, we're going to be in the advantageous position to ask a few questions of the heads of the leading ad bureaus of the major media. Best of all, these questions will be asked out in the open, and in front of a room of Madison Avenue heavyweights, so it won't be too easy for them to slide off the hook. The topic is total communications planning, and how they all fit into the ad industry's new media equation. The reason we're mentioning this is just in case you had a question or two of your own that you'd like to see posed. If so, just email them to joe@mediapost.com, and make sure you say the Riff sent you.