Speaking as a Client I have to answer that question in several ways, it is not as simple a question as it appears.

Firstly, Id have to say one wordâ ¦broke!
I cannot, for the life of me, ascertain just what benefit all of my advertising has done for me. I cannot get a simple answer to my simple question, Has my latest advertising campaign created increased sales?

Now, with the advent of Web 2.0 â “ Facebook, Youtube etc I am really becoming confused, it still hasnt been proven to me that my past advertising expenditure worked for me on commercial television at all. Now they want me to spend more money on a totally unproven and questionable medium!

Additionally my Marketing Department is growing with all these IT specialists full of excitement and glib promises for the future of my sales â “ funnily enough the same excitement I heard about commercial television all those years ago!

With the increase in staff, my infrastructure costs are growing to accommodate the growth in staff and technology. Allied with frustrations growing within my existing Marketing team because like me, they cannot see the impact of all this new work and technology. My Managers have become remote. Resulting in slower decision making, all of which will eventually lead to competitive failure in the marketplace if we continue like this. There is already a dichotomy between the marketplace and my internal marketing bureaucracy.

I see advertising as to be all about communicating, in theory, we live in an age when its easier to communicate than ever before.

But do we communicate?

Emails and BlackBerries, Voice Mail and online networking, we should be able to interact with others 24/7, but frankly it appears to me that communication has in fact, broken down.

And of course theres the vexed question of trust, I recall years ago a research study conducted by one of the leading advertising agencies, the study was on the audience measurement of the commercial break. In a nutshell this study found that of a given audience 50% werent watching at all, a further 15% went to make a cup of tea, or whatever, 10% went to the bathroom, 10% read or did something else, and there I was paying for the whole 100%!

Needless to say that research study was quickly hiddenâ ¦So my question is What are they not telling me to day?

Also I want to know why this fixation on the youth market? We are. in fact, living in a ageing community, who have the disposable income to a better extent that the young market the advertising agencies are perpetually chasing!

All I want to do is increase my sales!

As a customerâ ¦well, simply put, I am confused!

I really dont know whom to believe these days. Media has always had a bad name, but now it seems to be getting worse. Journalism should be an honest and useful trade, as should advertising. However TV journalism, as well as advertising seems to have become more disreputable than ever. It seems to be that TV, together with the Internet, is full of liars, fantasists, hucksters and geeks of every kindâ ¦. And all trying to take money from me.

There is so much choice and information out there that I choose to ignore it all and go my own sweet merry way, for fear of making the wrong decisions.

I just dont know whom to trust anymore. I have just discovered that every time I log onto Facebook, my personal data, what I like or dont like, plus a whole lot more is going to be collected and sold to advertisersâ ¦I dont like it one bit. For me it is an erosion of the unspoken bond between business and the individual, well all I can say is hooray for good old fashioned advertising at least I could do something else when it came on.

With this development I have a well-founded fear of vastly increased opportunity for the misuse of my personal information!