Like the British, the Roman or the Ottoman Empires, advertising has grown so big and greedy that it’s begun to eat itself.

It’s become a decaying empire desperately milking a dying cash cow, taking money out of the bucket as fast as it can before the animal keels over.

From the Mad Men era to Ridley Scott’s “1984” Super Bowl spot for Apple, advertising had a Golden Age. Media channels were consolidated, attention was guaranteed, and brands held a monopoly on content creation. The budgets were big and the parties were even bigger.

That world is gone. The shrinking of traditional ad agencies and the unprecedented volume of out-of-work CMOs, CEOs, and ECDs aren’t just a rough patch, they’re signs of a structural collapse.

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So why is our industry so slow to change and look at alternative models?

It’s because advertising has served us a masterclass in aggrandisement and self-preservation. It’s built an incestuous ecosystem of research agencies, media trading desks, and measurement tools designed solely to justify its own existence.

It’s the pharmaceutical model of business: invent and sell expensive treatments for symptoms whilst ignoring the simple cure of healthy living.

Too many advertising agencies have got lazy and hidden behind a shield of false........

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