Pursuant to my last post.

The deleterious effects of our low-bid economy are everywhere and they make my blood boil. So today we end up with cheap products that wind up more expensive, growth-hormones in our farm-grown Chinese fish and lead in our brand-name children's toys. And crappy one-off advertising that does nothing.

But here's the thing that really rubs my goat the wrong way. Where are our industry leaders? (I won't for a second say, where are our national leaders? They're at a focus-group facility some place reading poll results and back-pedaling.) You see, low-bid is in many cases synonymous with low-risk. And if we had industry leaders they would be speaking out about this.

Instead, Chief Creative Officers are wanking on about minutia, agency presidents are blathering about new media modalities, Bob Greenberg is incomprehensible, and no one, no one is saying advertising takes time, money, intimacy and intelligence for it to be effective. Advertising is not a cost-center--it is a profit center. It should not be low-bid, low-risk.

Is there an agency person out there willing to make a speech entitled "Why an "Expensive" agency winds up being cheaper." Naw. I'm off to the Hamptons.