"Google and Facebook are attacking,” came the cry from Madison Avenue. “Circle the wagons,” was the answer from France. And so two of the world’s biggest advertising companies, Omnicom and Publicis, announce they are merging. Now that advertisements are more algorithm than Mad Men , the television series depicting Madison Avenue in the 1960s, the merger is being interpreted as the end of the golden era of advertising. It has been seen by the news media as a move by these two ad agencies to shore up resources in order to compete with the giants of Silicon Valley.

The problem with this view, however, is that it makes two flawed assumptions. On one hand, it imagines there is a data-enabled, predictive digital advertising machine that is the inevitable future. Search for tyres and you get an ad for Michelins on sale a mile from your current location. On the other hand, it overly romanticises Mad Men-style advertising virtuosity, in which three suave guys sit back with cocktails and kick around ideas on how to sell you anything from hair-replacement therapy to car insurance.

Both caricatures have a kernel of truth to them. But if advertising is to thrive in this wired era, the efficiency of digitally targeted media must embrace the creativity of Mad Men, and vice versa. The organisations that can do this, whether they are conglomerates or boutiques, will usher in advertising’s second golden age. Indeed, in a short time we may be watching a hit TV series (or web series, for that matter) dramatising the moment when efficiency became hip.