Barely two months into the year, and I’m already sick of the word engagement. All this talk about rings, advertising…whatever you want to call it. There is too little engagement — and at the same time — too much talk about it.

Last week, I was at VideoEgg’s Engagement Debate ‘08 in New York. It was a well-produced and meaningful discussion about the future of digital marketing across all media. Industry luminaries took the time to talk things through, to moderate panels, and to share their considered thoughts. It was (and I don’t say this often) worth the time. Even the extra two hours I spent at LaGuardia airport waiting for seat 13C on a Canadair CL-65.

Spend an hour sitting next to an airplane lavatory, and you’ll start thinking about what engagement really means.

Now, I’m as guilty as the next person in digital advertising of using this word a little too much. But once you spend a day with people who feel obligated to bring it up, that’s when you know that it’s time to find something else.

But it’s not that simple to replace a word that’s a placeholder for something else…without finding a suitable replacement. The idea of engagement makes sense as a way of describing an experience with advertising that’s more than direct response and something shy of a pure brand advertising experience.

Perhaps engagement is just a way to contextualize something that already exists today. Perhaps it’s a way to give lipservice to measured advertising performance while putting a name to something that continues to defy quantification. After all, according to Universal McCann, national advertisers will spend $50.5 billion on television advertising in the US this year. Those are dollars that don’t have to explain themselves in terms of click-throughs or conversions.

That’s the point. Advertising creates marketing synergies…but that’s a different buzzword.

Thanks again to VideoEgg. They put on an excellent event.