Three recent pieces, from three titans of the ad industry: the good, the bad and the lovely.

Rory Sutherland is just the kind of chap advertising needs to renovate both its product and its image. He takes a balanced and intellectual approach to marketing communications and argues compellingly for the economic benefits of intangible value creation. He is an ebullient and unapologetic proponent of the social value of capitalism (agencies’ ambivalence towards crass commercialism has always irked clients). He’s also bloody funny and wears cravats.

While I disagree with his specific contention that behavioural economics should be the new foundation for agency expertise, I think he’s spot on in acknowledging the lack of a tangible expertise that (right or wrong) clients see as both valuable and indispensible. Likewise the call for a fundamental reinvention of the industry’s product (currently on-demand creation of content to fill media buys), as opposed to simply bolting on yet another discipline to obscure yet another credibility gap.

Saatchi’s Kevin Roberts appears to be a pedlar of precisely the kind of quackery that has damaged the industry more than most of its myriad failings. The “Lovemark” is a prime piece of sophistry designed to obfuscate an inability to evolve from a 1950s business model. Endless variations on these silly snake oil remedies have been trotted out over the years. When things were good they were an amusing diversion, given the current state of the business, they are a useless distraction.

And if nature abhors a vacuum, I hope she wasn’t watching when this piece of tripe aired. Smugly assured insights that could be gleaned from the headlines of any newspaper, in any country, on any day of the week only reinforce the view that we’re a bunch of preening ponces.

Sir John Hegarty is a founder of one of the only remaining independent agencies of global significance. BBH is a forward-looking company with an awe-inspiring history of brilliant, enduring and endearing work. In his audio piece for the Johnnie Walker Walk With Giants series he eloquently advocates for the power of creative ideas and their almost mystical ability to move people: the art side of the equation to Sutherland’s science.

Agencies sell creative ideas and possibility to people who deal in goods and certainty. By definition something creative is something untried, its effect uncertain. Hegarty gives voice to the reality we can never share with our clients: the truth is we never know whether or not something will work; ultimately we must trust to instinct, experience and probably a bit of luck. Thirty odd years ago, the Steves (Jobs and Wozniak) would have understood that notion, but the life enhancing utility of an ad is a little less obvious than that of a Mac

I’ve never met any of these gents. For all I know, Hegarty’s a scurrilous prick, Roberts a latter day Thomas Aquinas and Rory Sutherland employs a ghost writer. But taken together and at face value they provide a fascinating glimpse into the Gordian puzzle that is the future, or not, of advertising.