Yesterday’s Ad Age Daily contained the disturbing news that only 21% — twenty-one percent! — of marketers (clients) would recommend their own agency to others! This dismal revelation was joined by the equally distressing stat that fully 76% had no way to measure their agency ROI.

Measurement’s a great concept when you’re trying on shoes but considerably less useful when it’s time to pick shoe style or color. Conclusion? Shoe doesn’t fit — should have measured more carefully. Shoe looks ugly — next time take your wife along and don’t trust the salesman.

Here’s my take. Accept as gospel the idea that occasionally clients, shall we say, intensely dislike the notion of writing checks for advertising versus the spontaneous act of setting fire to a pile of money in the middle of the street, thus providing measurable light and warmth.

Second, throw in the qualifier that says we must measure everything, otherwise we can’t see where we’re going or where we’ve been.

Finally, fail miserably at trying to come up with a metric that can discern between Coke On A Hillside, Where’s The Beef and the Geico gecco.

This isn’t as radical a comment as first appears. If humans could really measure emotional content in a predictable fashion, marriages wouldn’t go bad, politicians wouldn’t disappoint, car salesmen would be revered and finally, creative directors would be role models. Hah!

Ain’t gonna’ happen. So in the meantime, clients will continue to cringe when it comes to advertising support. Best advice for advertisers? If it makes you feel good or, better yet, if it makes your market feel good, just enjoy the unqualified internal ray of sunshine that beams forth as a result of that unsolicited spontaneous compliment on your latest ad. Because sometimes that’s the best metric of all.