There's a line I've always liked from the 1961 Billy Wilder comedy "One, Two, Three" when a mixed-up character describes the situation in Cold War Berlin as "hopeless but not serious." It seems the perfect way to assess the brouhaha between the country's leading marketers, as represented by the Association of National Advertisers, and Madison Avenue, as represented by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, as they grapple with fundamental disagreements over how they do business with each other.