• by Jim Meskauskas , December 2, 2004

This week Forbes.com and the advertising agency Euro RSCG Worldwide released a study that found that a lot of C-level executives think the advertising industry has little understanding of the business issues challenging businesses like theirs.

The study also revealed that less than 40 percent of the some 9,000 C-level executives surveyed think "external advertising and marketing services bring a valuable perspective to our advertising and marketing issues."

Less than 40 percent think that "external advertising and marketing services" are lending value to a company's adverting and marketing issues? Though I could be mistaken, I read, "external advertising and marketing services" as really meaning "advertising agencies." Can this be true? Do the majority of decision-makers and power-brokers of the corporate universe really think that agencies bring no value to advertising and marketing issues?

How the mighty have fallen.

There once was a time when the advertising agency was THE pantheon of cultural production. Silent films in the 1910s featured heroes that were advertising people. Cary Grant, in North by Northwest, was a successful and unflappable Manhattan advertising executive who accidentally becomes a Cold War hero.

David Ogilvy's book, "Confessions of an Adman," was a best seller in 1963 when it was published. The character of Darren Stevens in "Bewitched" was an advertising executive -- a symbol of a successful pillar of a man rendered a bumbling fool because he was subjected to fantastic circumstances.

Even as late as the mid-80s, advertising folks were considered special and creative people, from the slapstick-funny-albeit-dated "Bosom Buddies" to the mix of suburban malaise and familial treacle of "thirtysomething."

Now, it would appear that advertising and those working in it are seen as, at best, superfluous. At worst, it is a tumorous growth bearing forth from one's shoulder like a second head.

I've written before about how advertising as a practice has gone to war with the consumer rather than figuring out how best to talk to him or her. Much of advertising has gone more for the yelling, screaming, and cajoling of the consumer than it has the path of gentle persuasion. But this has little to do with why advertisers no longer see their advertising and marketing services in the light they once did.

It is due in part to creative shops doing "art for art's sake." Many times I have quoted the words from the beginning of Ogilvy's "Ogilvy on Advertising": "When Aeschines spoke, they said, 'How well he speaks.' But when Demosthenes spoke they said, 'Let us march against Philip.'"

The agency creative process has been one that produces exceptional art, concise narrative, and emotional impact. However, if you don't move me enough to "move" me, then it is all for naught. It is essentially the inability of most agencies to admit to the necessity of accountability.

Of course clients certainly hold some of the blame. Increasingly they want more specialized skill sets but want to pay less for them. They want to treat most of the ad product (particularly media) like a commodity but have it customized for just their needs. A majority of those surveyed say that advertising agencies don't understand the unique issues challenging businesses like theirs.

Clients need to understand that though a nuanced understanding of their business certainly helps in the development of advertising solutions to marketing problems, they are not so unique as to rest beyond the pale of any solution dreamed of in Horatio's philosophies.

There are two things clients don't realize when considering their own businesses. 1.) Most marketing problems are the same or similar to advertisers both in and out of a category. Sure, my special garden is going to be landscaped like no one else's, but dirt, plants, a trowel, and cement are common to more than one backyard. 2.) No one likes to be told they have an ugly baby. Just because, as a client, you are in love with your product doesn't mean that everyone feels the same. If most people think the product isn't good, then it isn't going to sell, no matter how much or how well it is advertised. I don't care how appetizing a designer makes a dog-poo sandwich, at the end of the day, it is still dog-poo, and most people ain't gonna eat 'em.

Advertisers and the advertising industry need to get together to understand each other's business. The nature of how advertising and other businesses operate has changed, and certainly expectations about performance have changed, but the true fundamentals of what drive them have not. Businesses still need to sell product and agencies still need to figure out the best way to help them get it done.

Organizations need to realize that there is a big difference between knowing how to make a product and knowing how to sell it. And there is something to be said for a skill-set that can rely on a vast number of experiences not specific to a particular product or service to bring a new and potentially successful solution to a marketing problem.

Agencies need to understand that they are a part of what a client is trying to accomplish with their business and not separate from it. In order for an agency to find success on the part of the client, they have to be a part of the business, not just using the business as a showcase for their own talents.

"That's the whole matter then. We have the peace, and let me pay my respects to Don Corleone, whom we have all known over the years as a man of his word."