The Trade Press.

My friends often deride me because I so often deride the cowardice and mediocrity of the advertising trade press. 

You'd think that if the trade press still employed journalists who did more than regurgitate press-releases and gossip, someone would be writing about the lack of honesty in the industry, not to mention the loss of literally hundreds of thousands of jobs. 

Instead we get pablum--mush with no nutritional value--posing as news.

We used to have a calculus (other than awards) of assessing the economic viability of agencies. Their major accounts, their revenue, the number of their employees. That gave us critical information about agencies--empirical, not "for sale." Of course a lot of that was fudged. But largely you knew who was doing what and how well.

All that information is missing now. Now we pick agencies based on awards they pay for. And often the same companies that are major investors in awards shows are major investors in agency holding companies. Often the agency of the year in, say 2024, is an agency out of business in 2026. That's trumpian in its dishonesty. It's like competing against judge and jury and hangman.

WPP in their 2026 annual report claims they employ 99,000 people. In 2017, WPP claimed they employed 203,000. You'd think a loss of more than 50% of your employees would be a lead story. Somewhere.

Imagine if major league baseball consolidated Cleveland, Detroit, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and St. Louis into one team, called, say, the Polymers and then that team went belly-up. You'd think that would earn some ink. But no. The press hasn't covered the geo-politics of the rapine of the industry anymore than People magazine would cover the closing of the Straights of Hormuz.

The top headlines of today's Ad Age (the magazine that misappropriated the name of this blog and took it as their own) read like dispatches from an unrecognizable industry. What they report on doesn't matter and they report only on things that don't matter.

Most pernicious is their editorial conceit "XX creative campaigns to know about today." I don't know if these headlines includes duplicates, but looking at all the campaigns "to know about," you'd think there was a shitload of great work out there. Most people I talk to see about one decent piece of work a quarter--or less if you don't count what Apple makes. Yet here on the front page of Ad Age are 36 campaigns worth paying attention to. Are there 36 ads in the world right now not offering Buy One Get One?

To my glaumy eyes, the most annoying of all editorial devices is the "listification" of what used to be journalism. I just got an email from Campaign US calling for entries on some "40 over 40" contest, which will turn into editorial, which will turn into selling swag, which will turn into an $500/plate dinner, which will turn into incessant LinkedIn self-promotions from the nominees and winners, which in turn will turn into yet another permutation of this even covered with maybe slightly different dressing.

Consider my rough math on the above.

If they get sixty nominations for their 40 over 40 at an average entry fee halfway between the standard and the extended rate ($360/pp) you quickly see that CampaignUS magazine makes $21,600 from this "editorial." In all my years in the business, I've never seen a copy of Campaign on someone's desk. They have a lot of different ad units for sale, but I can't believe they make much through either subscriptions or ads.

To me, it's much more likely Campaign US and so much "journalism" like it is like so many of the phonus balonus-ness that has tattered the legitimacy of every industry everywhere. They're in the business of charging real fees for fake awards then more fees for fake awards dinners.

Entries here must net them a lot. Though what this award proves beyond that you entered and paid a fee is unknown to me. £6750 is a lot for dinner for 10, too--at a time when most agencies have about a $8 dinner allowance after 9PM and you might be able to expense a pogo stick home.

So journalism isn't reporting news, it's fabricating it. They're so divorced from the idea that people will pay for useful information that they no longer even try to supply it. Instead, as I said above it's regurgitated press-releases and awards press-releases. With no perspective, honesty or investigation.

The trade press is now a flack.
They chose to be flacks over reporting facts.