“What strategy does your advertising agency suggest?” we recently asked the CEO of a large client.

“We never ask our agency what to do,” he replied. “We tell them.”

Ouch. The Rieses go on to deliver some depressing figures as well:

Only 10% of executives thought Advertising was important to their company’s success. This ranked just above Legal.

Only 10% of the public (according to a recent Gallup poll) think advertising is honest. That’s right between Insurance Salesmen (11%) and Car Salesmen (9%).

On Advertising Awareness:

The chihuahua didn’t make Taco Bell famous. Taco Bell made the chihuahua famous… The Sock Puppet didn’t make Pets.com famous. Pets.com’s money made the Sock Puppet famous… What’s the cause and what’s the effect? Advertising icons seldom cause brands to become famous. But famous brands often cause advertising icons to become famous.

They argue that advertising can only maintain a brand, not build it. Because to build a brand you need integrity, something advertising sorely lacks.

The toughest pill to swallow is advertising’s ROI. Check out these figures for General Motors from 1995 to 2000: They spent a 6 year total of $17.7 billion to go from a 34% market share to 28.1%. Double ouch.

For a few years now, I’ve been toying with the idea of getting an MBA in my spare time: taking night courses or perhaps joining an online university. But an MBA don’t come fast or cheap.

I’ve already picked up Statistics for Dummies, but here are 30+ more books and blogs that the bald Josh Kaufman recommends through what he calls his “Personal MBA” Program. I have about 10% of these books already, and access to one of North America’s biggest interconnected library systems. I’ll let you know when I get my ‘degree’.

Link to The Personal MBA™