On February 28th, the AAAAs (4As or American Association of Advertising Agencies), will convene at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas for is annual conference . The trade association, chaired by Anthony J. Hopp of Campbell-Ewald and O. Burtch Drake, the president-CEO of AAAA oversees the health and wellness of America’s advertising agencies including their uneasy marriage with all things Internet, Google and Yahoo!.

The headliner last year was Al Gore, who decided to forgo speaking about Current TV, the cable television channel that broadcasts user generated content where he is Chairman, to deliver the same slide show you many of you have seen in his movie An Inconvenient Truth.

Operating in the shadow of Al Gore was a keynote speech given by Dan Rosensweig, chief operating officer and chief golden tongue of Yahoo!. From Wenda Harris Millard, chief sales officer of Yahoo! before Dan’s delivery: “We have waited a long time for this.” Millard, having arrived at Yahoo! in October 2001 when its stock was in the single digit doldrums, is the architect of the company’s successful relationship with Madison Avenue. At the time of the dot com boom, Yahoo! had snubbed the big agencies and collected money directly from their clients. Millard, an advertising rock star with accomplished stints at DoubleClick, SRDS, Family Circle and Adweek before joining Yahoo! knew Terry Semel and the gang better cosy-up to the advertising agency money well.

Enter Chief Golden Tongue Dan Rosensweig. His speech to the agency crowd of traditional practitioners was entirely, in every way, political. We feel your pain. We feel your pain. We feel your pain. Empathy. Empathy. Empathy. We are in this together, and we will figure it out together. We are partners, walking hand-in-hand. Applause, lots of it.

Yahoo!, since Millard, has always understood advertising agencies and what makes them tick. Yahoo! advertising executives are known entities on Madison Avenue and there is an intentional, high level of engagement between Yahoo! and traditional Madison Avenue elements sorting out the brave new world.

In stark contrast was the palpable fear and downright suspicion reserved for Google. Subjected to various speakers mentioning “challenges faced by the industry” and throw-away lines for cheap laughs, there were no open arms for Google. No keynotes either, just one or two panels. Google will have to learn empathy and, like Yahoo! pre-Millard, will have to stop being a bad boy if it wants to earn its spot at this country club. A quick check of this year’s AAAA agenda shows nary a Google executive on the agenda.

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