CLOSE-UP: ON THE CAMPAIGN COUCH ... WITH JB.(questions from advertising personnel, advertisers answered)(Column)

Q: I am a marketing director who has always wondered what happens in Cannes every June. Would you recommend I join my agency and sample life on La Croisette myself?

A: No.

Marketing directors should appreciate their agencies, discipline their agencies, reward their agencies, chastise their agencies and occasionally even love their agencies. But they should never, never join their agencies. Marketing directors who go native quickly forfeit the trust of their colleagues and the respect of their suppliers.

Cannes is no place for marketing directors who want to preserve some degree of white space between themselves and their agencies. You would either visibly disapprove of what you observed - in which case, your agency relationships would become tense and edgy. Or you would love every irresponsible second of it - in which case, your career would be doomed.

Take your pick: gatecrasher or gooseberry. And deeply unwelcome in either role.

Let your agencies have their moment in the sun. Some of them may even have deserved it. But leave them in no doubt that you expect to be presented with more distinguished advertising in the future.

Q: I am the chief executive of a small advertiser and I'm increasingly confused by my ad agency. When I appointed it it used to just make ads. Now it is making TV programmes, publishing music and designing clothes. Is this normal, or should I find myself a nice traditional agency that sticks to its chosen craft?