If an ad campaign is built around a weak idea - or as is so often the case, no idea at all - I don't give a damn how good the execution is, it's going to fail.
It takes good clients to make a good advertising agency. Regardless of how much talent an ad agency may have, it is ineffective without good products and services to advertise.
Is advertising moral? It is part and parcel of the American free enterprise system... I challenge anybody to show any economic system that has done as much for so many in so short a time.
Advertising moves people toward goods; merchandising moves goods toward people.
Advertising is salesmanship mass produced. No one would bother to use advertising if he could talk to all his prospects face-to-face. But he can't.