• by Peter Gardiner , April 16, 2008

VENICE--After a festival that started with hearing from old-line media (NBC) trying to act like a new wave content/relationship-driven company, and a new media company (Facebook) sounding like a company very sure of its future, it was time to hear from the middle men.

In a five-person "sell" of why everything (media, creative, strategy, design, digital, etc.) belongs at the media agency, we heard from a media agency leader, a market researcher, a digital agency head, a media client and a creative something or other. Some great thinking and some well-done presentations, but can we please leave the "creative agencies only want to do :30 second spots" comments on the gondola? Please. The P&G media head, Bernhard Glock, made a great point when he said that you've got to earn a seat at the table.

The global client session witnessed Laura Klauberg from Unilever in an impressive and quite broad-ranging show of digital prowess across a range of brands, Bernhard Glock (again) with a very clever Puma case study, while Pio Schunker basically showed a Super Bowl reel and the very clever and integrated Coke Zero work. Then Sital Banerjee from Philips scolded the audience (mostly media-agency types) that they couldn't add their GRPs by market and asked: Who is training media talent for the future? Sital's comments begged Q&A, but alas, there was no time.

The highlight of the day, at least for me, were the comments made by Chuck Porter and Sir John Hegarty, acclaimed leaders of creative shops. When asked who should lead -- creative or media -- Hegarty called it a "dubious debate." Porter went so far as to say, "We don't even think about it." The obvious tension that seems to emanate from every media agency head concerned about living in a walled-off media silo, was happily absent from the "creatives" who seem to care more about the "idea" and less about the media ecosystem that this conference celebrates.

Day two's media-agency head debate should serve as a great platform to continue this "dubious debate."

What followed was a night of great food and wine in the amazing restaurants of Venice and some free-flowing commentary on day one's activities. There seemed to be a consensus that the conference had not advanced much from year one, which, to be fair, I did not attend. Great speakers, top industry pros, but very little that stirred debate.

The themes of collaboration, communication, content is king, the consumer is in control, the multi-screen world, etc. were well-debated, if not worn out. But no one I spoke to had a memorable moment to recall, save Chuck Porter's/Crispin's new Subservient Chicken TV work in Spain. Hilarious.

Wow, the highlight of the day was a creative idea, not a media innovation.