I found this section from Joshua Ferris's Then We Came to the End to be a brilliant description of the traditional ad man's daily compromise:

"Our job wasn't to ask what the point was. If that had been our job, nothing articulated to prospective clients in our capabilities brochure and our website would have escaped our rolled eyes. The point of another billboard outside O'Hare? Another mailer on your kitchen table? Good luck mustering an argument for more of that glut. If we had to call into question the point, we'd have fallen into an existential crisis that would have quickly led us to question the entire American enterprise. We had to keep telling ourselves to forget about the point and keep our noses down and focus on the fractured and isolated task at hand."

Well-written fiction: The best truth there is.

Cheers,

Johan and the PostAdvertising.com Team