• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, March 12, 2008

Whether some sort of re-bundling between creative and media shops officially happens, it's clear the concept already has a de facto existence. Take MindShare's branded entertainment arm producing a 30-second spot for Unilever's Dove that aired during the Academy Awards. Traditionally, that would have been the province of sister creative agency Ogilvy & Mather.

But David Lang--who heads the MindShare group (which generally is not in the ad production business)--said clients are idea-neutral and his unit had the spark for the Oscar spot. The Unilevers of the world are hungry for ideation and don't care where it emanates from, he said.

"Creative ideas can come from many places," Lang said on a panel last week at the AAAA Conference in Orlando, Florida.

His point received an endorsement from GlaxoSmithKline's media services chief, Kevin Holowicki: "Ideas can come from anywhere. Anywhere!" A current GSK campaign wasn't developed by the AOR, but a relationship marketing shop, he said.

As debate spun around him about how to allocate dollars in the New Media Order, former WB CEO Jordan Levin suggested that advertisers steer clear of the medium he used to program. "I don't understand why the budgets haven't shifted more ... the measurability in digital is so much greater," he said--referring to the popular quest for improved metrics.

Of course, Levin wasn't exactly a neutral commentator. He now runs production studio Generate, which focuses on short-form comedy content for the Web-and he's riding high, having just closed a deal for $6 million in funding from investors.

That windfall will be used in part to build a sales force--with a new head of sales soon to be hired. Two-year-old Generate will look to link with advertisers to integrate their brands into the content it generates, which will then be syndicated via a range of distribution avenues.

The company, with about 15 staffers, originally had an exclusive deal with MTV Networks, where if its creations were turned down, it could not approach another distributor.

Levin took a cautious approach in commenting more specifically about the struggles the second-year CW network--the successor to the WB--has had. "It gets more and more difficult to reach younger audiences in traditional ways," he said. (The network targets adults ages 18 to 34.)

In the case of the CW--which was formed via a merger of the WB and UPN--Levin cited the challenges of re-branding, building consumer awareness and grappling with station changes in various markets.

Despite any looming fears of a recession and resulting cuts in travel budgets a la what happened after 9/11, attendance figures for the conference were about on par with last year's event in Las Vegas, the AAAA said.

One possible reason: the focus on technology and its current and coming impact--something new AAAAs head Nancy Hill is expected to make a hallmark of her tenure. The event carried the title "Digital Changes Everything."

Hill, who recently took over for O. Burtch Drake after joining from Lowe, did not participate in the planning of the conference. Her opening remarks marked a sort of public debut in the top role at the 81-year-old trade group.

Top agency chiefs differed on whether the proposed Microsoft-Yahoo merger would prove to be a boon.

"I would love to see Microsoft and Yahoo get together and get a search product on the rails that'll give Google a run for its money," said Sarah Fay, CEO of Carat.

But Anthony Young, the president of Optimedia USA, offered a different take: The development of better technology and creativity--and not scale--will pose a more effective challenge. "The answer to have a real competitor to Google is innovation," he said.