Well, take that Federated Media and your fancy-schmancy new buzz words. Or so Elinor Mills seems to be saying in this piece on CNet today: Want to ‘converse’ with advertisers? Me neither. Federatedmediaconf It’s her review of FM’s glitterati CM Summit yesterday — at SF’s Presidio of all places. All the kool kids were there.

But Elinor rips into the whole concept anyway, bursting the bubble pretty well. Brands are conversations? Hooey, she says:

Hold on. Who asked marketers to join readers online? I know blog publishers need to make money, and they do earn revenue off regular old text, video and banner ads. But I’m suspicious when the “conversation” is initiated by the marketer and not the consumer. And what’s this with the slogan of the conference–“Brands are conversations”? No, they aren’t.

And she wraps up her review, after giving us a few quotes from attendees and speakers, with this gem:

Just as advertisers have been able to get their ads printed on stickers on supermarket fruit, tattooed onto people’s skin and even written in the sky, they will surely blanket the online world in ways we can not even imagine. But let’s not confuse plain old advertising and gimmick marketing with a new form of commercial digital communication that ostensibly gives consumers more control.

I think Elinor ate her Wheaties yesterday. [And, no, General Mills did not pay me to say that…… 🙂 ]