Covering two conferences running concurrently last week in New York -- one for mobile marketers, the other for direct marketers -- gives cause to use the word malaise.

One show focused on direct mail, database marketing and interactive issues, the other on mobile advertising and marketing. But the Direct Marketing Association's Direct Marketing Days show and the Mobile Marketing Association's Mobile Marketing Forum yielded not just knowledge and networking but also frustrations with perception and reality.

Let's start with mobile marketers. It seems pretty much obvious that many mobile marketers are frustrated.

Frustrated that even after eight years or so of being able to run text promotions, many brands still sit on the sidelines and don't give mobile marketing its due.

Frustrated that the same issues discussed last year -- indeed some of the same questions asked last year of panelists -- were raised this year.

Frustrated that the major advertising agencies still don't get mobile marketing.

Frustrated that they still have to explain themselves over in Mobile 101 terms each time there are chairs, chandelier and mic in a room.

Frustrated that brands and agencies don't get it that mobile is the most personal, targeted and ideal medium for one-on-one outreach, or direct marketing at its best.

Frustrated that the wireless carriers just aren't with the program -- at least in ways they'd like them to be.

Frustrated that the United States simply is not donning what belongs to Caesar: the mantle of marketing leadership in mobile as it does in other mediums.

On the other hand, the direct marketers feel aggrieved.

Aggrieved that they're being given short-shrift by a postal service that's intent on driving catalogers and mailers to desperation with repeated postage increases.

Aggrieved that they're on the back foot on so many issues -- direct mail, email, behavioral targeting.

Aggrieved that they've got to defend print mailing lists when the winds are favoring interactive marketing -- where reliable online lists are hard to come by and rarely shared.

Aggrieved that they're pigeonholed as direct mail specialists when direct marketing is more than just that -- an argument ongoing for more than a decade since the Internet proved its marketing chops.

The needle won't move for both marketers, mobile and direct, unless they stop speaking up only for channels. They should be speaking up for consumers in multichannel terms. Where does direct fit within the marketing mix? How can mobile support television, retail and catalogs?

Thinking solutions is harder than thinking channels. But solutions for whom?

It was sad indeed to hear that one session at the DM Days show had only one attendee show up. There were three panelists. The smartest panelist sent that attendee to meet with his colleague at the company's booth on the show floor. And then the panelists dispersed.

At the Mobile Marketing Forum, there was stunned silence when a panelist asked a room of more than 200 delegates to identify themselves as executives from brands. Fewer than five hands went up. Asked to identify themselves as agency reps, less than 10 hands were raised, at least as seen from this writer's perch.

Essentially, that panel and the one before and after were preaching to the choir.

There is something fundamentally wrong in the way marketers, be they direct or mobile, are evangelizing marketing and its role in a vibrant, capitalistic society.

This needn't be the case. But for marketing to succeed, it needs the participation of those that produce the content or product, those that shape it, those that distribute it and those that support it.

So guess who's missing very often at these trade shows? The producer, also known as the advertiser.

Associations and trade shows have to do a better job of attracting advertiser-side delegates, both to offer timely and relevant case studies and with the sufficient humility to sit in the audience and learn.

Until that happens, direct marketers will be playing defensive on mail and email issues and mobile marketers will continue to lament the neglect they suffer.

All channels suffer issues. Look at TV -- how measurable is it compared with direct, interactive or mobile marketing? Or what of print -- who's in the reader's head to hear those "intent to buy" thoughts?

And yet those two channels get budgets out of whack with their proven ROI effectiveness. They've convinced the advertiser -- out of fear, out of proof of branding effectiveness -- that their channels are indispensable to getting their brands heard over the din.

So why can't direct marketing have a "Direct Gets" campaign? Direct Gets Sales, Direct Gets Results, Direct Gets Rewards, Direct Gets Automotive, Direct Gets Retail.

Target the vertical, get the advertiser testimonial, prove the point.

For mobile marketing, how about "Mobile Moves"? Mobile Moves Product, Mobile Moves Cars, Mobile Moves Music, Mobile Moves Homes, Mobile Moves Advertisers.