For much of the twentieth century, companies relied on a "full-service" agency for most or all of their advertising service needs, including both creative development and media planning and buying
Fans of the television show Mad Men are well acquainted with the mystique of the advertising business, circa 1960s, where relationships were consummated over martinis and campaigns fashioned through the wizardry of creative director Don Draper, swooping into the pitch meeting at the eleventh hour with his latest brilliant inspiration. For decades, advertising agencies have thrived on, and in some ways fostered, the idea of advertising as a creative black box.
Silk explores this problem in his 2012 paper, Conflict Policy and Advertising Agency-Client Relations: The Problem of Competing Clients Sharing a Common Agency.
This article was provided with permission from Harvard Business School Working Knowledge.