At the Disintermedia panel this morning with Joe Mandese, Nigel Morris, Edward Montes.  Here’s the session marketing notes:

PANEL: Disintermedia Westside Ballroom – North

In an era of 2.0 this and 2.0 that, the original zen masters of positioning are in the throes of repositioning themselves. Digital media units are usurping their big brothers, and Madison Avenue outsiders like Google, Spot Runner and, yes, even the consumer, are disintermediating the role of traditional agencies. Truth is, Madison Avenue has always been more than the sum of six big agency holding companies, but even the notion of that cozy club is being challenged when you consider that Microsoft, a software and technology company, is now the parent of Avenue A, while WPP, an agency holding company, owns 24/7 Real Media. Is Big Advertising being replaced by an army of smaller, nimbler, more flexible marketing services shops? Will we end up with a smaller advertising industry thanks to improvements in the science of marketing?

MODERATOR:
Joe Mandese, Editor-in-Chief, MediaPost Publications

SPEAKERS:
Nigel Morris, Worldwide CEO, Isobar
Sean Finnegan, Chief Digital Officer, Starcom MediaVest
Trevor Kaufman, CEO, Schematic
Edward Montes, EVP, Managing Director North America, Media Contacts
Matt Freeman, CEO, Go Fish

The main thing I got out of this panel is the perception Google (is / is not) a threat to Madison Avenue.

To be honest, and I am not an expert here, that the panel is in denial about Google, beginning to disintermediate Madison Avenue with it’s nimbler marketing services.

It seems to me, under the circumstances, a representative from Google ought to have been on this panel, as well.

Freenimum, as a term, is also coming up, a lot,in this discussion. Reason? In the new rules of media disintermedia, you need to give stuff away.

And what happened to Yahoo? Is Yahoo now totally unimportant in this discussion now?

Yes, more or less, they have been paralyzed over the last 9 months with everything we have been reading about, but there are new signs of life (semantic search) and they should not be totally counted out.

It is challanging for agencies to be set up to fully meet the all needs of their clients, and can’t even afford to take on very small clients.

Also, agencies are beginning to be asked to take an advisory role of harvesting clients data and provide insight.

In other words, agencies are beginning to take over some of the roles of an in house site analytics / marketing analytics group.

Ha! I knew I’d get something out of this otherwise, boring panel.