The 4A’s media event has improved say executives -- but some of its problems continue at this year’s event. “I’m disappointed that the agencies leadership isn’t here,” says Tom Carroll, president and CEO for TBWA Worldwide, and current chairman of the 4A’s. While the media conference has gotten better, Carroll says, especially this year, there are many top level people haven’t shown up. “Nobody is that bright. I don’t know where they are, but they should be here.” Carroll says the event should also attract more ad executives of all types. “We are still doing a crummy …

Jeff Hayzlett, chief marketing officer and vp of Eastman Kodak Company, asked a group advertising executives assembled before his presentation who bought a roll film in the last year. Two hands went up. Then he asked how many people have digital cameras on their phone. Perhaps 500 to 600 hands went up. “That the business we are in,” he says, who notes the company has shrunk significantly from being a multi-billion sales company because of digital camera technology. Kodak has been looking to reinvent itself, to invent the “Kodak Moment” â€" still an important part of its …

“Marketing isn’t about being concerned [about what doesn’t work]; it’s about being confident,” says Larry Light, the longtime marketing chief at McDonalds Corp. and at Nissan, now president and CEO, Arcature LLC. He says research will help but executives need a vision, a passion. Getting metrics to support your results? That leads to less passion. “It’s numbing to market by the numbers, justifying marketing by metrics,” he says. “Judging from the past experience won’t tell you want happens in the future.” Concerning the colossal marketing issue at Toyota, Light says: “Where was the voice of the consumers? …

The 4A’s new logo â€" not less driven. The American Association of Advertising Agencies has a new logo â€" which makes its like look less like an association that helps those who operated cars. “It always bother me our logo look like the triple A [the Automobile Association of America],” says Nancy Hill, president and CEO of the 4A’s. Against a white background, the new logo has one simple “A” in red, with a red dash, and then a lower case “s”. It was created by TBWA, says Hill. “But that’s just cosmetic.” With …

The American Association of Advertising Agencies is calling its “Transformation 2010” conference a “mash-up” of its previously standalone Media and Leadership conferences, but there’s something else different about Madison Avenue’s annual meet-up: It’s composition of chromosome. There are significantly more pairs of XX chromosome gracing its stage. “Eighteen women speakers, roughly one-out-of-three, marks the highest percentage and number of women in the history of 4A’s events,” reads a press release issued this morning by Nancy Hill, the first XX president of the ad industry trade association. Hill: Bringing Some XX To The AAAA

Digital data is growing â€" but a lot of it is doesn't work, is undervalued, or not given to users who can benefit from it. “What’s broken is that we are moving down a path that isn’t scalable,” Adam Gerber, chief marketing officer of Quantcast, at a panel discussion that the 4A’s media conference in San Francisco. “Publishers don’t give the data that marketers want.” He adds that what is given is also “defined by the marketplace.” Digital media offers tons of data, but a lot of it isn’t worth much as yet. Scott Hagedorn, chief executive officer …

Spot television has its challenges these days. Abby Auerbach, executive and chief marketing officer of the Television Bureau of Advertising says some fundamental changes need to be made for the business to move forward. First, TV has been primarily bought and sold under a cost per rating point basis. But that’s not the way the media world works with almost every platform â€" that being the cost per thousand viewer impressions, CPM. The business needs to move to this model. Next, there should be a thirty-day cancellation of local TV buys, not the typical two week cancellation policy …

Carol Bartz, chief executive officer at Yahoo! says the company's core focus continues to come in three areas: Science, art and scale. “I actually wanted to say art, science, scale â€" but some people didn’t like the acronym,” says Bartz. ‘Art’ comes in getting the best ads to engaged consumers, ‘science’, comes in improving on Yahoo!’s metrics -- targeting and optimization -- which Bartz says is the best in the business. ‘Scale’ comes from what Bartz says it is continued growth, now around 600 million users. “It isn’t just that we have a lot of them, it’s …

Another medium is breaking a new campaign during the Four As’ Leadership/Media Conference in San Francisco to tout its vitality to the media-buying crowd: The magazine industry. But the new campaign, “Magazines: The Power of Print,” isn’t coming from the Magazine Publishers of America, but as a standalone effort from a group of some of its biggest members, including Conde Nast, Hearst Magazines, Meredith and Time Inc. The campaign, created by Four As member, Y&R, will roll out in the May issues of the members’ monthly titles, and in the April 5th issue of their weeklies, and will cover nearly …

It may be the opening of the American Association of Advertising Agencies annual conference -- the first ever combining their media conference with their general management meeting -- but another advertising trade association, the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB), is using it as an occasion to make some news of its own. Actually, the TVB's news is an ad campaign -- the first over-the-air TV ad campaign launched by the TVB in more than 12 years. The campaign, which is comprised of four 30-second spots, promotes the value of advertising on local broadcast stations, and coincides with former Madison …