I haven’t found the sweet spot in this topic yet. Let’s figure that this is the first in a series of blog posts, and the searching behind them, on service as it relates to marketing, or more specifically, to me.

I hope when I finish this series that I am better for it. Like the classic scene in “As Good as It Gets”, when Jack Nicholson stops Helen Hunt dead in her tracks by saying, “You make me want to be a better man.” I too want to come out of the other end a better man.

I believe that marketing communications (or advertising or sales promotion or branding or whatever the current phraseology might be) is arguably the most cost-effective piston in the economic engine. I make that argument from my august viewpoint of business philosophy and experience.

I have witnessed great advertising, which includes the big idea, the right executive, and smart media buys, add second shifts to production lines, fill warehouses and trucks, fill appointment calendars and schedules, build lines in front of theaters and restaurants, and universally create a demand that exceeds supply.

It does this by connecting the best consumer with a product or service. It creates a need and fills the need. It’s win/win. Good advertising even makes a bad product fail faster, minimizing loss.

Knowing all this as I do, I say confidently that a good agency, not just Murdoch Marketing, but any good agency, provides a valuable service, perhaps the most valuable service a company can ever buy. A service that helps reach milestones, creates opportunities for advancement, improves a standard of living and a quality of life. Not just for you, but for those around you, too. Good advertising is a core component of a healthy ecosystem.

Now, as advertising professionals, can we provide that service without first thinking, what’s in it for me? Can we put the customer first, ahead of reciprocity? Can we truly be of service, in and by itself?

Of course, we can. Right? Said Henry Ford, “A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.”

Not sure on that one. Maybe the next post in the series.