Right now it's the major issue between marketers, advertising agencies and production companies.

I ask this one question. What have we become? In the day's of David Ogilvy (a sort of virtual mentor... I drank the cool-aid while working at O&M but never even met him) this issue would never have surfaced.

The bottom line is this... Marketers are strong arming the industry for payment terms 120 days after production is complete. Ad Agencies don't want to pay until they get paid. Yet production companies pay crews within 10 days...

So the net result is production companies becoming "banks" for major marketers while they borrow money to pay crews and wait for 4 months to get paid themselves. CRAZY!

Maybe I'm too selective in my memory of David and his philosophy of practicing the "high road". But I'd bet my signed "Ogilvy on Advertising" book that David would not stand for hard working people being squeezed by the major corporate advertisers.

He was a man of taste, had great passion for advertising, but most importantly always preached to act with dignity and respect for clients, colleagues and vendors.