Al Gore: marketing expert.

How many current presidential candidates are raising millions of dollars to pay for advertising campaigns and flyers and marketing developed by political media consultants? That would be all of them. How many people hate political ads? That would be all of them.

How many current or potential presidential candidates were invited to speak to 1,200 who attended the 97th  annual conference of the Association of National Advertisers?  That would be one, AL GORE.

Yesterday, Gore posted three short videos on Current.com. Some viewing these seem to think that these are just not good enough for prime time and mean there is no way he is running. Today, according to the NYTimes, Gore was in Phoenix addressing "the largest gathering ever of an influential trade organization" on marketing. Things that make me go Hmmm?

The theme of the conference was targeting consumer behavior rather than consumer attitudes, opinions or perceptions.

This year, the roster also included Wendy Clark, senior vice president for advertising at AT&T; James R. Stengel, global marketing officer at Procter & Gamble; and Al Gore.
<snip>
Mr. Gore was invited months ago to address the conference, which carried the theme “Transforming the Marketing Landscape.”

Still, said Robert D. Liodice, president and chief executive of the association, it was Mr. Gore’s choice to stick with his speech, titled “Consumer-Generated Media: The New Marketing Paradigm,” rather than discuss global warming or the Nobel Prize. The four questions Mr. Gore answered after his remarks were also limited to marketing.

Now ask yourselves, why would 1,200 advertisers attending their largest trade conference ever want to hear what Al Gore has to stay about cutting edge marketing and give him a standing ovation? Given Gore's prescience on everything else, this makes me think that if he is going to run, those anticipating anything like a traditional campaign are going to be sorely disappointed. And I suspect that if he does run, after this no one will ever hire a traditional media consultant again. Which woud be a good thing.