No, you are not alone

I was in a meeting the other day discussing a potential project. At one point I made it clear that I didn’t want to use the term ‘advertising agency’ to describe our group. It’s old, passé and represents everything wrong with advertising. When I siad, “just look at the ads out there” a very nice and smart marketing person I just met leaned forward and said something to the effect of, “Is it me? I don’t understand a lot of what people are trying to advertise. No, it’s not you. The fact that you can admit it, says a lot about you. Big advertising is broke and thinks they are reenacting the show “AdMen”. Problem is the show is fiction and so is most of how today’s advertising operates. And when someome smart, who works in marketing says she doesn’t understand it,  there’s a problem.