I automatically discard most spam. And, I was about to discard this one when I decided to read on. After all, I'm never been a big fan of advertising agencies and when I see a headline like: "The sky is falling on the advertising business," I have to admit to being a little intrigued.

But, then I read the note. It's from a guy named Joel Cohen, who is assembling what he calls The CEO Stars Video Conference. He says it's an assemblage of 22 (why 22, and not 21, or 23?) passionate, energy driven leaders of advertising agencies. Cohen connects these "leaders" and inspires them to re-think their badly broken business model.

But, why do these agency leaders need Joel? And, how would one know if the 22 leaders he's recruited are, in fact, visionary thinkers? If they had, in fact, reinvented the advertising model, why would they share it with 21 competitors? Perhaps even more to the point, why would they pay money to share their ideas? Something doesn't compute.

Then again, desperate times call for desperate measures. So, maybe Joel and his merry men (and/or women) will figure out a next generation revenue model. On the other hand, as P.T. Barnum reportedly said, "There's a sucker born every minute."

I'm at a loss as to whether this is ambulance chasing or opportunistic marketing. Maybe one of the 22 passionate, energy driven leaders of the CEO Stars Video Conference could shed some light on the subject for me.