Farewell to the digital agency?
In this opinion piece Angela Smith argues digital agencies have no place in the modern marketing mix.
It’s 2015 and the term ‘digital’ in marketing as a specialisation is outmoded and the notion of ‘The Digital Agency’ is a non sequitur. Given 81 per cent of Australians have smartphones on them every waking hour, using laptops, desktops, and tablets simultaneously – it seems a little old fashioned to distinguish digital as a separate discipline.
If it’s ubiquitous in the landscape of our behaviour (and has been for some time), the fact that ad agencies continue to insist on using digital to differentiate their services is a little embarrassing. Of course your agency does digital. If it doesn’t, umm, well things are going to get a little awkward aren’t they? Instead, isn’t it a matter of how well you do digital, or more importantly, why you do digital?
Yes, but so-called ‘traditional’ channels are all digital now.
TV, OOH, Radio etc.
There’s a big big role for technology in supporting comms of all flavours.
That’s the digital agency opportunity..
Congratulations on becoming a full service agency Affinity.
This isn’t an opinion piece on digital agencies.
It’s a blatant attempt at agency credentials.
Maybe do some work that demonstrates your opinion in practice.
Until then, spare us the spiel.
I’m so over this argument and this article adds no value to it other than to promote your agency.
For a more balanced and well-thought perspective on this read http://www.sodareport.com/indu.....f-thrones/
Brief:
Build a house.
Method:
Hire an architect / designer (creative) to get a plan put together
Hire a builder: to execute the plan
The builder will need smarts: Chippy, Plumber, Sparkie. Depending on the brief, might need further smarts: glazer, landscaper, tiler, roofer, home automation specialist.
What is my point?
Well what if the builder that I hire has only ever built rural homesteads, but I want a modern contemporary apartment..?
It’s good that you and other agencies like yours think this way, Angela. It leaves the rest of the digital arena wide open for the rest of us.
On a side note, I just had a peek at Affinity’s website and noticed ‘digital’ listed separately from your other services. ‘Differentiated’ one might say. If you feel the way this article suggests & your blog ‘Digital is so 2005’, for consistency’s sake & to put your money where your mouth is, I’d challenge you to remove it or at least merge it with another service.
Digital or TV?
A big idea works on any screen (and in print).
Nice piece, simply put. But there are important implications for agency remuneration.
The so-called “big boys” who do so well creating work for mass media are well paid because their fees are often a small fraction of production+media on any project. And paying them well is a smart investment because they are brand experts.
But development for digital channels is way more labour-intensive. So you can either pay peanuts and get young people with digital smarts but little experience, maturity or brand know-how, or pay what it’s worth to have experienced agency development for your brand’s online work.
As presumably the only advertiser commenting in this stream, Angela is 100% spot on and i don’t care whether her column is blatant self promotion or not – it’s true.
ESPECIALLY the observation that “”we are digital’ agencies..are doing some seriously cool digital and tech innovation. But much of the time they do it because they can, not because they should, or because a brand needs it….Whilst shiny and new is appealing to many clients (“give me something out of the box!”), it’s largely conceived in a vacuum, and doesn’t have the big picture brand business thinking required to drive sales and genuine ROI. Brand strategy is way down the learning curve for these guys as many of them were born from a production model of building websites”
After 2 years of searching i have given up on mty ambition to find a “digital agency” that wasn’t simply a technology solution in search of a problem, one that could demonstrate a holistic, integrated understanding of brand, marketing communications, ATL etc. They are utterly, hopelessly myopic
Reminds me of how stupid i find the ‘digital native’ tag. Spending more time on social media than anyone else and less time on news media makes for a generation of opinionated but ill-informed fools.
just enough of Digital agencies Armageddon. Yes they will be dead if the only thing they did were campaigns. There is more than that.
From a person who regards themselves as a “digital” person, this “”we are digital’ agencies..are doing some seriously cool digital and tech innovation. But much of the time they do it because they can, not because they should, or because a brand needs it….Whilst shiny and new is appealing to many clients (“give me something out of the box!”), it’s largely conceived in a vacuum, and doesn’t have the big picture brand business thinking required to drive sales and genuine ROI. Brand strategy is way down the learning curve for these guys as many of them were born from a production model of building websites”, is soooooooooooooooooo wrong
What the advertising industry needs to understand is that we never wanted to work in advertising. But if we wanted to build some cool microsites (circa 2006) or have a few cracks at some apps (circa 2008+) we had to work in advertising or advertising production. We don’t care about your “big ideas” and we don’t about short lived campaigns.
The reason we focus on technology and innovation is because its a form of solution to interaction problems. To us, innovation is a “big idea”. We don’t want to form an insight into a problem and create a funny campaign around it, we want to to solve the problem.
This conversation is really only relevant if you are talking about the inner workings of advertising, which if we are, is the main problem you should be talking about. Its advertising that needs a kick up the bum. Advertising, really hasn’t changed since the 60’s. You still have the same hierarchy, same copywriter/art director teams, etc. This doesn’t work anymore.
The sooner the “advertising agency” dies the better.
Hey Angela, thanks for sharing your view. Totally disagree with it, though.
Going by the logic that ‘we all have smartphones’, then we should get rid of Experiential agencies too because, y’know, we all experience stuff.
And your point about coming up with solutions conceived “in a vacuum” – well you can level that any type of specialist agency that’s crappy-at-solving-problems. Anyone fails if every problem looks like a nail when you’re a hammer etc etc. That’s not just a digital issue. Its a strategy issue.
And if you do find a full service agency that offers every digital skillset inhouse – well I’d look carefully at their fee structure, because they’ll have a lot of specialists who aren’t being used much and, well, someone’s paying for them. That’s why markets love specialisation: comparative advantage.
So it’s great to offer all solutions with digital in mind. It’s a really good idea. It doesn’t mean you do it well.
@Michael.
I applaud the ‘solving the problem’ rather than faffing around with insights etc. In a lot of cases – usually service based situations – that’s fantastic. But it usually falls down when someone wants to sell toilet paper, soap or chocolate bars, or basically anything in your fridge.
While an integrated view is certainly preferable, the piece assumes digitally savvy clients and audiences, unencumbered by privacy, security, legal, and usability issues. We are far from that.
Forget its market share – folks simply do not yet understand digital like they understand print and electronic.
It also, regrettably, reinforces the perception that agencies tend to focus more on the medium than on truly understanding and communicating clients’ value propositions.
True as ever: “Half of my advertising budget is wasted; I’m just not sure which half.”
All this is out of my league, but I question the article’s statement that “81 per cent of Australians” have smartphones and are tuned-in every waking hour of each day.
Seems a gross exaggeration to me…
@Michael – nailed it. “To us, innovation is a “big idea”. We don’t want to form an insight into a problem and create a funny campaign around it, we want to to solve the problem.”
You want to “solve the problem” Don’t worry, there are bigger problems to come
Remember when you could play a YouTube item and be amazed and entertained? Not any more, now you must count five and reject the ad, or sit it out in some cases before tuning in to whatever you have chosen to watch. If it turns out to be the wrong choice, then you must find another, and go through it all again.
Imagine how it will be when your iPhone rings, you answer it, and to your joy it is the love of your life calling, but before you get a chance to say more than hello, an ad springs up with a five second delayed cancel option or worse.
I suppose you think I am joking, well maybe, but I remember when TV ads were regulated to a number and frequency, and the internet made sqillions out of shared or marginal ad space.
@Les Ava Analogy
What if you made a different point – by clarifying your key objective in the brief: that you want a modern contemporary apartment? Why brief to ‘build a house’ then get all the way down the track only to discover your designer isn’t equipped to deliver on what you really wanted?
Brief for what you need, not the outcome that you think you want.