• by Jack Feuer , February 13, 2008

I resolved that for Valentine's Day, I was going to say nice things about top management at every media and ad agency in America. But then I'd have to find nice things to say, and that's just too much research for me.

Besides, agency leaders have stock options, corner offices, expense accounts the size of their swollen heads and over-ambitious, twenty-something assistants to get their dry cleaning for them. So really, who cares about their feelings?

And anyway, I found out that this is also International Flirting Week, so I'm obligated to be coy. Here's my offer: I'll say nice things about all of you--but in exchange, you have to pool your ample resources and save this country, which is undeveloping at a frightening rate.

The United States used to be more efficient in the marketplace than any other nation on Earth. Not anymore. And I blame you.

You may not believe this, but there was advertising before you lost yourself in the illicit thrill of experiential marketing and do-it-yourself media--a whole marketing history that happened prior to your obsession with bizarre digital executions. There were business epochs that predated your addiction to mobile love. Back then, people like you depended on something called "ideas."

This is not the same as ideation, which is something you tell your client you're doing when you're really golfing. And one of the really big ideas back then was that clients had to deliver what your ads and your media plans promised.

It was quaint, that long-gone era. There were things called "customer satisfaction" and a strange word, "service," that communications professionals made sure their clients provided before they embarked on a campaign.

So when I walked into a Blockbuster, I was promised stocked shelves with easy-to-find titles. And plastic bags to hold my purchases--and I got 'em. Now, my local Blockbuster looks like the aftermath of an Obama rally. Unswept floors. DVDs scattered everywhere, in no particular order. And no plastic bags.

When you called the telephone operator back in the day, they used to always get the number you needed. Now? You have about a one in three chance of getting the right digits from the voice-activated system, if it can find the listing at all.

And someone please tell Verizon that if they cut off my DSL account for no goddamn good reason one more time, I'm coming over to their place and going all Britney on their ass.

See, today, you're too busy encouraging homely women to video themselves in their bras, posting patently phony MySpace pages for packaged-goods advertisers, or urging slack-jawed kids to make dumbass Doritos commercials to worry about whether what you're selling is actually what your clients really sell.

But if you encourage your clients to honor that Old World service idea just a bit, and create communications to match, you might find consumer love a lot easier to win.

And you'll save America from turning into Angola in the process.