Now you've known me long enough to know that the last thing I want to do is be serious on this page. After all, when you're here, you've already mused over the important features, noted the new watches that you really should think about ordering and bathed yourself in that warm afterglow of having read the magazine from cover to cover. What you need now is a little light refreshment.

However, there comes a time when one has to stand up and be counted. For me, that moment has come.

A period of discovery
I used to run the advertising department of a large American company. The first few weeks I was there, I wore a well-cut suit, clean white shirt and elegantly knotted tie and went from department to department trying to sell the capabilities of my group. I had what I believed to be good ideas and an efficient and creative design staff to back me up, but all my time was spent trying to convince department heads to advertise their products rather than actually creating ads for them. I simply couldn't get any commitments.

So one day, I went through all the pros and cons of my ideas to try and determine where I was going wrong. When I finally got down to objectively looking at myself, the idea suddenly struck me that perhaps, just perhaps, my clean-cut 'business' look didn't inspire confidence or credibility. My appearance was wrong, it needed to be more artistic. The following day, I dressed down to denims, open necked shirt and no jacket. As stupid as it seems, the results were instantaneous. Within a week, we had more work in the advertising department than we could cope with and every time I visited a department head I was given more.

Think Coca Cola
I learned my lesson. Selling was as much to do with appearance and being seen as it was to do with content - which, needless to say, reminds me of another pertinent anecdote.

The year that the Titanic sank and I was in my teens, Coca-Cola was all the rage. Every bistro, every corner café and coffee shop not only had the drink in stock, but the name was to be found on billboards, ashtrays and parasols. My friends drank it with an abundance of ice and marvelled at its sweet effervescence whilst I coolly sipped a frothy cappuccino. But wherever we went I was constantly subjected to the Coca-Cola brand name.

Today, the company name is still everywhere and has been for years and like so many people before me finally I succumbed to the company's brainwashing and ordered some Coke. The fact that I was in South America and was hauled before Columbia's Drug Enforcement Agency is another story, but the constant visual impact of the brand name had succeeded in gaining yet another client.

Like it or not, Coca-Cola's advertising strategy is perfect. The company maintains its name before the people they want to reach and advertising, as I said, is as much to do with appearance as content. The more it appears, the more chance people will buy the product. In my opinion, you should start thinking Coca-Cola!

Maintain a high profile
Now let me underline something closer to home. Most magazines have an established 50/50 or 60/40 contents policy - sixty per cent advertising and 40 per cent editorial. Without the advertising, magazines inevitably get smaller and smaller and the very people advertisers want to purchase their product or service, your primary customers, become less informed because of the decrease of both editorial content and informative advertising.

I can't help asking all you advertisers out there, is that what you want? Is eliminating your brand name and your products from the retailer's reference publication, their working tool, the manner in which to improve sales? Shouldn't you be taking advantage of today's situation by doing more advertising and gaining some extra market share whilst your competitors sit back and await for those far off 90s to return?

Out of sight often means out of mind, so if you keep your products and name before the very people with whom you need to maintain contact, when the time is ripe, when stocks are down and the economy is off and running again, they will return to the brands they know and love because they haven't had the chance to forget them.

So please, take a long hard look at your advertising budgets again because I need you too. You see, I'm really not much good at anything else except playing with words and if I'm made redundant, my tailor, my ex-wives and Toby my dog are going to get very upset.

One last thought: remember, doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You may know what you are doing ... but nobody else does!