Is your ad agency a cult?

So there I was, surfing around the internet doing research on cults for no specific reason (google is great) and I came across this. It's a description of signs you're in a cult. Upon reading, I found the similarities between a cult and the typical ad agency's mantra uncannily hilarious. Compare these traits to your agency, and the ad biz in general and see for yourself!

Common Properties of Potentially Destructive and Dangerous Cults

-The cult is authoritarian in its power structure. The leader is regarded as the supreme authority. He or she may delegate certain power to a few subordinates for the purpose of seeing that members adhere to the leader's wishes and roles.

-The cult's leaders tend to be charismatic, determined, and domineering. They persuade followers to drop their families, jobs, careers, and friends to follow them. They (not the individual) then take over control of their followers' possessions, money, lives.

-The cult's leaders are self-appointed, messianic persons who claim to have a special mission in life.

-The cult's leaders center the veneration of members upon themselves.

-The cult tends to be totalitarian in its control of the behavior of its members.

-The cult tends to have a double set of ethics. Members are urged to be open and honest within the group, and confess all to the leaders. On the other hand, they are encouraged to deceive and manipulate outsiders or nonmembers.

-The cult has basically only two purposes, recruiting new members and fund-raising. Established religions and altruistic movements may also recruit and raise funds. The cults may claim to make social contributions, but in actuality these remain mere claims, or gestures. Their focus is always dominated by recruiting new members and fund-raising.

-The cult appears to be innovative and exclusive. The leader claims to be breaking with tradition, offering something novel, and instituting the only viable system for change that will solve life's problems or the world's ills. While claiming this, the cult then surreptitiously uses systems of psychological coercion on its members to inhibit their ability to examine the actual validity of the claims of the leader and the cult.