You all suck. Now do something about it.

A JWT and Adweek survey released this week reminds us that we are tantamount to nothing more than used-car salesmen and politicians

Via Copywrite. Ink and Adotas, the lowlights read as follows:

• 84% agree (strongly/somewhat), “Too many things are over-hyped now."
• 72% agree, “I get tired of people trying to grab my attention and sell me stuff.”
• 52% agree, “There’s too much advertising — I would support stricter limits.”
• 47% regard “Advertising as background noise.”
• 61% do not see advertising as persuasive.
• Only 14% of those sampled respect people in advertising, which beats national politicians  (10%) and car salesmen (5%), but lags behind lawyers (@ 19%)

On the flipside:

• 82% indicate they had a positive engagement with media overall
• 41% consume “interactive” media
• 2/3 claimed that “advertising is an important part of the American culture.” - that's good news for crayon client, Firebrand

As I wrote in Life after the 30-second spot, we need to make advertising relevant again. We need to embrace more meaningful roles for advertising, other than the superficial informing ('er have you heard about search and social networks?), persuading (see results above) and reminding (read: spam) - such as demonstrating, involving and empowering to name but 3.