Come one, come all, to whatever you want

It speaks to the “we never saw a conference we didn’t like” mentality of Advertising Week that yesterday’s troika of events at the Marriott Marquis turned into one big, rolling conference—by the end of the day, people were intermingling under the banner of any, and all, of the organizations holding events there. We spent most of the day at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s daylong confab (that’s WOMMA for the uninitiated), where Jupiter Research analyst Gary Stein, moderating a panel on “How WOM Changes Advertising,” (WOM stands for word of mouth) took tongue-in-cheek potshots at competitor Forrester Research, which was holding its Consumer Forum 2005 downstairs. But late in the day, we spotted Forrester analyst Jim Nail at WOMMA—sans registration tags—boldly asking questions of one of the late afternoon panels. As for our part, after WOMMA wrapped up, we wandered into a cocktail party on the very same floor sponsored by Adweek competitor Mediapost (we originally thought it was a Yahoo! party, honest), that was wrapping up its OMMA conference and awards (that’s for Online Marketing, Media and Advertising, no relation to WOMMA, or to the MIXX Awards—sponsored by Adweek and the Interactive  Advertising Bureau—which were held the night before). Well, you get the idea. And if you don’t, we’ll forgive you.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

September 29, 2005 | Permalink