It's a Joke.

Perhaps more than anyone else commenting on the Empire of Illusion that is today's ad industry, Ad Aged has wondered about the interlocking connection between a British-owned company called Ascential and the holding companies that together monopolize the advertising industry.

(There was a time when such economic concentration was regulated against and combatted by the Federal Government. Anti-Trust used to be the law of the land, because lack of competition usually drives up prices and drives down or out service, both of which consumers need protection against, but those days are gone. If you're not sure what I'm talking about just think about air-travel today. It sucks. And there's no alternative. In amerika, there's no such thing as a good airline. Just as there's hardly such a thing as a good cable provider or  good ad agency.)

Ascential does more than put you at the heart of what's next. (Personally, I'd like to be at the pancreas of what's next.) Not only have they invested in most of the holding companies, they own the Cannes Advertising Festival, Warc and Contagious magazine. Holding companies spend millions or hundreds of millions with Ascential to win awards so their business grows so they can in turn spend hundreds of millions more with Ascential.

It's all a little mobbed up and drug-pushery. Ascential has played on an industry-wide award addiction and profited from the industry's heroin-need to win more awards since today, awards, whether for real work or fake are the only measurement the ad industry understands. Genuine value is harder to analyze and evaluate. What's more it might demand actual thinking and facts.

h/t Darlene Cipriani.

A friend just sent me a link to the article above. Ascential was just bought by Informa for what used to be a lot of money. I've spent a moment on Informa's site but quickly left before I choked on too much alchemical vomit. 

The only thing I can surmise from all this is that Informa sees Ascential's profits and wants them for their own. The likelihood is they therefore over-paid for Ascential, like say IPG over paid for the Deutsch agency (buying it in 2000 or so from $200 million. Selling half of it earlier this year for $20 million.) In the meantime look for the award frenzy to get ever-more frenzied. Informa will have to put two agency asses in every one seat to make up for the money they've spent. 

And since the holding companies have a Lions-addiction, they'll spend more and more on plasticine trophies and less and less on the people with the talent to actual create work of consequence.

I don't have a crystal ball. So maybe I'm wrong and Informa is run by Albert Schweitzer-like people who are trying to do something of value.

Oh, and maybe you'd like to buy a piece of a bridge I'm selling in Brooklyn.

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PS. If you've ever wondered what three-card Monte looks like when it's played by MBAs, here's what three-card Monte looks like when it's played by MBAs.