The question.

There's a simple question that, in these days of multiple touchpoints and "surround-sound" strategies, seems is never asked. Because every agency now has 32-million "practices" each fighting for their own bottom line, the question is never posed, never considered, never even brought up. We don't ask it because we're more concerned with what WE need as a practice or an agency (to hit our holding company numbers) than with what our clients need to succeed.

The question is this: "How can we do the greatest good, influence the greatest number of people for the money we have to spend?"

What we have barring this question is competing fiefs. We have the mobile people spending like crazy developing WAP sites that few people will use. We have legions of tweeters and Facebook zealots creating "experiences" that have, at best, dubious return on investment. We have data-viz visionaries. The content confab. The video vehements. And they're all saying to clients who are also trying to hold onto their jobs "ME ME ME!"

In our nation right now which is so wracked by sectionalism and divisiveness, no one asks the question. In the multiple wars our Offense Department is waging, the question is never asked. I've been in the agency since 1984 and I've never heard the question asked by anyone but me.

So oceans of people are running around agencies and in client organizations producing myriad media pinpricks that viewers swat away like flies.

Because no one asks the one simple big picture question.