A recent Forbes.com study indicates that nearly 3 in 4 senior executives believe that advertising has a substantial influence on the success of their corporations, but fewer than half think that ad agencies provide valuable insight on the problems facing those corporations. Some of the usual complaints surface, including the old standby of blaming agencies for promoting creativity solely for creativity’s sake. Marketers are going to have to come up with some new material when it comes to criticism of the agency system. Creativity for its own sake is where the home runs come from, and there are no big home run hitters that don’t also strike out spectacularly as well. We feel that creativity gets short shrift in our micro-tracked and managed medium and we can’t help but wonder aloud where true creativity can simply be turned on and off like a switch? Ultimately, creativity is our lifeblood.  It isn’t the answer to everything all the time, but it is the always the answer eventually. It is time to put this complaint to bed.