The term cooks and broth spring to mind when considering just how many organisations purport to represent the interests of the marketing industry.
There is the Australian Food and Grocery Council, the Australian Hotels Association, the Australian Brewers Association, and the Distilled Spirits and Industry Council.
Then there are the lobbyists employed by the likes of Nestle, Foster's, Diageo and Unilever. Looming over the lot is the body representing the powerful free-to-air television industry, FreeTV Australia, which has more than earned its keep given the commercial networks will receive $250 million of licence fee rebates from the government.
And then, bringing up the rear, is the latest addition to this alphabet soup - the Communications Council, which was formed last year by the amalgamation of three advertising organisations, the largest of which was the Advertising Federation of Australia.
Given the stakes at play, it is not surprising that Canberra's corridors resemble Collins Street on a Saturday afternoon. The three key issues of advertising to children, the marketing of energy-dense food and drinks, and the marketing of alcohol threaten the foundation of commercial freedom. Already lobbyists, ministerial chiefs of staff and policy advisers privately complain that there are too many bodies with which to deal.
The council's new chief executive, Daniel Leesong, comes with a solid background in lobbying, having represented the hotels and spirits industries, as well working for politicians, including Tasmania's former premier Paul Lennon.
Far from standing back from the fray, the council is getting ready to pitch in, stating that it ''champions a pro-active and united industry approach that faces up to the increasingly restrictive regulatory creep''.
Did someone say united? Most of the established bodies do not want another organisation crowding their space, let alone one that they feel has little to add to the debate.
Furthermore, the council's attempts at unity have been far from successful, to wit its bungled attempt to co-opt the media-buying agencies by proposing to subsume the revenue and membership of the Media Federation of Australia, leaving that organisation with two board members on the council. It was exposed for what it was - a land grab.
The media buyers are not about to surrender their hard-won independence and influence within the boardroom to the very advertising agencies they broke away from more than a decade ago.
Furthermore, Canberra wants to hear from the people paying the bills - the marketers - rather than the people who are doing their bidding - the ad agencies.
By all means let the council be the voice of the ad industry on issues such as advertising effectiveness, the training of recruits and raising the profile of advertising among the Australian business community. But in all honesty what can it add to the debate?
Council chairman Anthony Freedman is reluctant to go into detail about the issues it will be raising with Canberra and, to be fair, it is early days.
He says there will be some issues - again he won't identify which ones - where the council will act in a ''support role'' to other organisations and those that will inevitably be of limited interest to the rest of the marketing industry that the council will initiate itself.
When presented with the choice between the organ grinder or his monkey, I know who a politician would rather see.
But if the council then refuses to dance to that tune and says its members will refuse to create ads that are clearly in breach of advertising codes that their clients have signed up to, then the politicians might just lend an ear.
