Sales may lead to advertising as much as advertising leads to sales.

It is very likely that many firms spend more on advertising than, for their own best interests, they should.

Most criticism of advertising is written in ignorance of what actually happens inside these agencies.

Advertising is much less powerful than advertisers and critics of advertising claim, and advertising agencies are stabbing in the dark much more than they are practicing precision microsurgery on the public consciousness.

Objectivity, in this sense, means that a person's statements about the world can be trusted if they are submitted to established rules deemed legitimate by a professional community. Facts here are not aspects of the world, but consensually validated statements about it.

Even if, as is generally the case, everything that the ad says about the product is scrupulously honest, or at any rate scrupulously avoids outright dishonesty, the implication of the direct address of most commercials - that the announcer speaks with the viewer's welfare at heart - is fraudulent.

Chances are that neither the client nor the agency will ever know very much about what role the ad has played in sales or profits of the client, either short-term or long-term.