The ad business is generally accepted as being in a hole. A large part of the industry is not trusted by those who pay for it and whose interests it exists to serve. Digital advertising is generally so poor that consumers go out of their way to avoid it. So-called precision targeting starts to get close to an invasion of privacy. Fingers are being pointed, mud is being slung. How on earth did we get into this mess?

Although there are many candidates to blame from client procurement, to trade bodies and even the trade press, much of the mud being slung around seems to be sticking to the media agencies and more specifically the multi-agency holding company traders. It seems that holding companies’ demands for ever higher margins from the media guys to counter-balance poor performances elsewhere have tempted a few of them to put their own interests ahead of those of their clients.

Read the full MediaVillage article here.