Ad Agencies Don't Advertise

Nice editorial by Al Ries on the Ad Age web site today. What a great observation that advertising agencies don't practice what they preach.

The only industry in America that doesn’t believe in advertising is the advertising industry itself. Because they don’t do any.

Well, hardly any. And certainly nothing like the volume of advertising they convince their clients to spend.

Advertising is the communications backbone of America. Virtually every large company spends anywhere from 2% to 16% of its sales on advertising. That is, every large company except Omnicom, WPP, Interpublic and Publicis...

...If advertising agencies don’t believe in advertising, what do they believe in? What the advertising industry believes in is public relations. They bombard Advertising Age, Adweek, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other publications with press releases about their latest campaigns.

And why the intense interest in winning advertising awards? Awards generate publicity and publicity generates clients.

We looked through five consecutive issues of Advertising Age, and except for a few classified “help wanted” ads, there wasn’t a single advertisement from an advertising agency.

“Do as I say, not as I do” seems to be the motto of the agency establishment. They sell advertising to others, but they don’t buy advertising for themselves.