My Back Page: Ad Leads…

…are everywhere…and early this month (well, starting with the last day of April and running through May 3 in Atlanta) the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau’s 2006 Cable Sales Management Conference is raising the advertising bar for cable with a stellar conference. I can say that because I’m part of it. Three different nationally recognized marketing mavens are speaking: 1) Betsy Lazar – executive director of advertising and marketing operations for General Motors…long title for "how to do rebates to move iron." 2) Seth Godin – author of Permission Marketing and a self-proclaimed guru…presumably he’ll explain "self-proclaimed" and tell us how to do that, too. 3) Terry Jones – founder and former president of Travelocity…how advertising can make a dot-comer rich. Advertising represents much less than 10% of cable operator revenue (more than 5%, though)…but, from a return on investment standpoint, it can be one of the more rewarding investments for an operator. And a couple of operators who know what they are doing—Cablevision’s Tom Rutledge and Comcast’s Steve Burke—will talk about advertising with Discovery’s Billy Campbell and Court TV’s Catherine Crier (who knows how to ask questions). I get to follow that with a look at new and advanced technologies…and how they make for cable opportunities, with Cablevision’s Barry Frey, Turner’s Chris Pizzurro, Cox’s David Porter and Comcast Spotlight’s Warren Schlichting. [Note: We plan to tape this and make it available via cell-phone TV, VOD and space imaging.] With the cable bundle comes more advertising bundling, too. And when the quad play arrives…well, we’ll talk a little bit about that, too. (Look for conference coverage every day in CableFAX Daily.) What we want to do is get that percentage of cable revenue from advertising to break the 10% barrier someday. The CAB is doing some smart stuff…and at the conference there are breakout sessions for operators in similar-sized markets, free booze for agency types and more. But let’s take a moment to look at advertising a little from the perspective of consuming advertising about cable… "Comcastic!" "A Great American Success Story" "The Power of You" "Only Cable Can" Huh? I have only one conclusion about creating advertising for cable and about cable. Ain’t easy.