Enterprise-Trained,
Now Direct

I've always had a way with words. My father loved to tell the story of when I was a toddler in a store, calling out the letters of the alphabet on a display. A woman — a teacher, apparently — stopped to say it was well beyond my age. I suppose that early fascination never left. While other kids were watching cartoons, I was obsessed with Monty Python sketches and Dave Barry columns. Naturally, people told me I should squander that gift in advertising.

So I did. I studied copywriting, learned how to write persuasively, and discovered that real advertising isn't about words at all. I believe it lives at the intersection of three disciplines: economics, psychology, and art. Claude C. Hopkins called it "salesmanship in print." I call it the other applied macroeconomics.

Through my years both agency-side and client-side, I was struck by how rarely those fundamentals were honoured. Twenty percent of your ad spend would be gleefully charged back to you "as-of-right," justified by expert management and value creation. But when performance wobbled, suddenly it was the algorithm's fault, or the economy, or, assuredly, purchase anxiety caused by the full moon.

The clearest example was analytics. Years ago, Avinash Kaushik published a comprehensive course for Universal Analytics (RIP), which was a prerequisite for the Individual Qualification at the time. As a (clearly naïve) young marketer, I studied every module, passed the test, and proudly earned my certification. Eager to apply it in a professional setting, I quickly discovered I was the only person among the alleged holders of this credential who could use it. I still believe that's one of the industry's biggest open secrets: for all our dashboards and jargon, the actual standard of analysis is embarrassingly shallow.

We're right to apply skepticism to the interests of media vendors — but we'd be wise to apply the same scrutiny to ourselves. Over and over, I saw commissions take precedence over common sense. Due diligence deferred to the nebulous and arcane, as if we were practising medieval alchemy. And performative lever-pulling that would make the Wizard of Oz look tastefully restrained.

Agencies aren't full of villains. They're full of good marketers forced to play a broken game - trapped in a model that rewards perception over performance. It doesn't serve anyone. Clients churn because they want to be wowed, and agencies oblige because they're paid to perform theatre. Given how some clients were treated — and how their money was — I thought: no bloody wonder.

My philosophy is simple: marketing should behave like an investment. I have no time for mysticism or theatre. It should earn its keep, be testable, and operate within the laws of logic and human motivation. Real ROI doesn't hide in fog. We don't trap our clients in rigid retainers. We work month-to-month — and deliver, month-to-month. If we didn't, I'd expect to be fired immediately. Preferably before lunch.

We trust financial advisors with our savings because they've earned that trust through performance. Marketing deserves the same scrutiny - for the same reasons.