Madison Avenue Manslaughter: An Inside View of Fee-Cutting Clients, Profithungry Owners and Declining Ad Agencies - Softcover

A good, swift kick in the butt is medicine every legacy business needs, though rarely welcomes. Michael Farmer administers the kick deftly, backed by years of experience and data. This readable book is a wake-up call for marketers and advertisers. --Ken Auletta, New Yorker media critic, journalist and best-selling author In his damning critique of the modern advertising industry, Michael Farmer warns that a dismal combination of technological change and the short-term drive for profit is killing creativity... For any young creative inspired by the lifestyle of ad campaigns and cocktails depicted in the TV series Mad Men , this book is a sobering read. --Financial Times

The advertising industry has reached a critical, even dangerous point in its development. Agencies are destroying themselves with growing workloads and declining fees, a "recipe for disaster." So what are the logical consequences of the failure to act? For the first time, Michael Farmer offers a solution to avoid this seemingly inevitable disaster. This book offers the world's first effective definition of "the real agency problem." Once the problem is understood, then the author offers corrective solutions.