There is a summit on child obesity happening as we speak in NSW, and you can bet they have the advertising industry firmly in their sights. The opportunity exists for us to show ourselves responsive to community concerns in this area. If we fail to develop credible, ethical, sustainable standards for advertising to children, I can guarantee you that someone else is going to do it for us.

Self-regulation does not mean the right to say and do whatever we like, and accuse any one who dares to criticize us as being anti free speech – or worse still, damning them as “politically correct” or a member of the dreaded “elites”. These days, we seem to practice self- regulation only in terms of seeing how much we can get away with.

Self-regulation means what it says. It means that we acknowledge our community responsibilities, and in return for a regime largely free of government restrictions, we will manage our own behaviour so as not to offend the communities who are our hosts.

We abuse this privilege at our peril.

The conventional wisdom is that clear, articulated brand values, such as trust, are what allows brands to charge a premium to generic products. If that’s true, then it’s worth polishing up advertising’s brand values. To me it’s merely common-sense, but if you baulk at that, think of it as enlightened self-interest!

Saatchi & Saatchi have been thinking about the role of trust in brand values for some time now, as have many of our industry colleagues.

Indeed the expression “Trustmarks” was developed elsewhere in the industry to describe the enhancement of a trademark, when it moves to a position of trust with its consumers.

If we apply our common-sense test – using our shared knowledge to predict the future – we observe that while trust is key to every relationship, trust is what keeps you safe and respected. It may be indispensable, but it doesn’t get your juices flowing.

Our world-wide CEO, Kevin Roberts, has coined the word Lovemarks to describe that feeling of passionate ownership and commitment that only a precious few of the world’s great brands possess.

Harley-Davidson has it. So does Apple.

Emotional connections that transcend metrics – a level of engagement that creates communities of infatuated customers which competitors can only dream of.

These communities exist because love-marks like Harley Davidson and Apple have managed to create a culture that is so completely customer-centric, so committed to customer values, rather than brand values, that they have transcended the traditional definition of a brand.

And they’ve done this by using their common-sense. By looking at what they knew about their customer’s feelings, and using that knowledge to predict their own futures.

They focussed on people, in all their complexities. They understood that the most profound connections are at an emotional, not an intellectual level.

That if 80% of the world’s purchases are made by women, and women rate intuition ahead of reason, then talking to them about feeling, rather than thinking, is the way to go.

Now I am not an unreasonable woman. I am not advocating that we abandon logic, throw caution to the winds, and indulge in an orgy of unfettered emotion.

Rather I am advocating a return to equilibrium. The balance of all those qualities that make human beings the infuriating, wonderful, complex creatures we are.

If reason were something that we valued equally with intuition, imagination, creativity, ethics, memory, and my personal hero, common-sense, then we would be a respected industry, a trusted adviser to our clients, and admired for the contribution we make to the continuance of our free-enterprise system, and the welfare of our communities.

And people would trust us. Because we deserve it.