What’s a digital agency?
It used to be easy to divide up the agency world. There were general agencies, media agencies, direct agencies, then Web agencies. You were media or creative, above the line or below the line. Nowadays, we see lines blurring everywhere. Publishers are acting like agencies. Advertisers are acting like publishers. Agencies are even trying out media. Everyone is in everyone else’s backyard. One of the new gray areas is the digital agency. It used to be simple. Traditional agencies came up with The Big Idea, then others like Web agencies constructed some matching luggage to go with the TV spot and print ads. That’s clearly breaking down. What is happening is a big free-for-all. Traditional agencies are driving to have the tech chops of digital shops, while the digital specialists want to get the branding acumen of the traditional shops they slag off all the time.
The myth of Digital Nirvana.
The proverbial elephant in the room, so-called digital shops have begun to recognize that even their best and brightest people want to do something other than online campaigns. If these staffers perceive their shop to be digital-only they get antsy. This is why so many of those shops are exploring ways to build out their advertising capability. They want to make fabled 360 marketing campaigns just like everyone else, and not just because of increasing revenue streams but because their people want it, too. The creative staff craves the permanence of print and the notoriety of TV. Ask any headhunter. Despite all the talk of digital platforms killing TV, TV is precisely what many so-called digital specialists want to be making!
The lowdown on digital space
A good guide for the novice; a wake-up call for those who think they know it all. It would be lovely to have been born 60 years ago. Everything was so much simpler then. Marketing required the understanding of just a handful of channels and media types. We could rely on decades of accumulated marketing experience to guide us. And the rules were well defined. But we weren’t. Like it or not, we’ve all been born into the digital age and the information economy. It seems the only rule is that change is constant, random and relentless. It’s no wonder that traditional advertising agencies have often been the slowest to embrace this change. When you’ve spent years honing and refining the craft of the 30-second spot or the full-page ad, having to master a new bunch of nerdy tools is a bit too much to ask. For years, most agencies chose to outsource all the digital stuff, hoping in vain that they could become digital by osmosis. It never happened. Some agencies established elaborate digital departments internally but tended to force them to play by the old rules — and operate as a separate silo; just another ball to juggle and another piece of the revenue pie to carve up. And a few visionary agencies got with the program, re-inventing themselves completely. They embraced change, maintaining all their old skills but re-skilling in new ones. So with more than a decade’s worth of fits, starts, successes and failures to learn from, what are the attitudes and behavior an agency needs to thrive in the digital age?
The myth of 360 campaigns.
Rare is the client that wants all its marketing from one agency. Despite our much pimped credentials to do it, we have precious few clients that want 360 marketing campaigns from us and us alone. This is a bigger deal than one might first think, impacting the people, the place and the work. For example, if an agency has a sizable client that only does work below the line, say direct marketing, catalogue and digital, then the agency has to staff accordingly. Those employees tend to be specialists, whether they like it or not. I say that because though the employees may be virtuosos at creating direct mail campaigns chances are they want to expand their skill sets, doing TVC’s for example. Because the agency has allocated them primarily for doing this work on that client, these individuals can feel pigeonholed, which frankly they are. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had my hand slapped trying to use some of these people on other projects. “They are not paid by that client. You have to look elsewhere for help.” Your staff becomes resentful and demoralized. “I thought this was an integrated shop,” one might say. “But this is all I ever work on.” In the long run nobody is happy with this arrangement. Employees complain and/or defect. If they stay their work becomes rote. It’s not just about technology. It’s about psychology… and sociology.
An understanding of human motivation and socio-cultural trends is still the key to any successful campaign. Observations and insights must dictate the most appropriate technology to employ, not the other way round. It’s not about your knowledge. It’s about your network. No-one knows it all. If they claim to, fire them immediately. The most valuable team members know what they don’t know. And better still, they know the people who do know. It’s not just about telling. It’s also about selling.
You can’t force someone to become digital.
But you can convince them that it is beneficial to do so. A little enthusiasm and evangelism never goes astray. This goes for clients as well as employees. It’s not just about learn and do. It’s about do and learn. One of the most exciting parts about digital projects is that more often than not, you’re embarking on something that’s never been done before. There are few templates or guides. We’re forced to make it up as we go along. Therefore, each project must serve as an opportunity to learn, share, grow and improve. It’s not just about learning. It’s an equal dose of unlearning.
You’re going to need experts. And you’re going to need executors. Experts need people to help them execute their ideas and strategies. Executors need experts to teach them best practices. It’s not about a digital department.
It’s about digital projects.
If you want to get your team moving swiftly up the learning curve, get them on the doing curve. Just make sure they have the experts, processes and resources in place to support them. It’s not about making digital agency the new buzz word of the company. It’s about making it permeate.
It’s tempting to buy in a high-profile digital team and give them the star treatment. Equally important is investment in training, research, processes and systems. It may even be better to not have a digital department at all — instead, infiltrating digital experts within existing departments. It’s not about geography. It’s about chemistry.
The beauty of the digital age is its virtual nature. One’s location is no longer a barrier to getting things done. But you have to get the chemistry right: good communication and collaboration tools and systems to allow people to play well together in this new borderless world. It’s not about digital creative or digital ‘strategy’. It’s about problem solving using digital tools.
A piecemeal strategy is doomed.
The best digital idea in the world cannot work in isolation. The more closely aligned each component of the strategy is, the better it works. Types of advertising agencies Ad agencies come in all sizes. They include everything from one or two-person shops (which rely mostly on freelance talent to perform most functions), small to medium sized agencies, large independents, and multi-national, multi-agency conglomerates such as Omnicom Group,WPP Group,Publicis, Interpublic Group of Companies and Havas.
Full-service, or Media-neutral advertising agencies have the talent and ability to produce creative and advise clients for a full range of media, for virtually any type of account, or company. Some agencies specialize in particular fields such as medical, charitable, FMCG, white goods, retail, etc. Other agencies specialize in particular media, such as print ads or television commercials.
Interactive Agencies may differentiate themselves by offering a mix of Web Design/Development, Search Engine Marketing, Internet Advertising /Marketing, or E- Business/E-Commerce consulting. Interactive agencies rose to prominence before the traditional advertising agencies fully embraced the Internet. Offering a wide range of services, some of the interactive agencies grew very rapidly, although some have downsized just as rapidly due to changing market conditions.
Today, the most successful digital agencies are defined as companies that provide specialized advertising and marketing services for the digital space. The digital space is defined as any multi-media enabled electronic channel that an advertiser’s message can be seen or heard from. The ‘digital space’ translates to the; Internet, Kiosks, CD-ROMs, DVDs, and Lifestyle Devices (iPad, PSP, and Mobile devices). Interactive Agencies function similar to advertising agencies although they focus solely on interactive advertising services. They deliver services such as strategy, creative, design, video, development, programming (Flash and otherwise), deployment, management, and fulfillment reporting. Often, Interactive Agencies offerings are; Digital Lead Generation, Digital Brand Development, Interactive Marketing and Communications Strategy, Rich Media Campaigns, Interactive Video brand experiences, Web 2.0 website design and development, e-Learning Tools, email marketing, SEO/SEM services, Content Management Services, web application development, and overall Data Mining & ROI Assessment.
Lately, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization(SEO) firms have been classified by some as ‘agencies’ due to the fact that they are creating media and implementing media purchases of text based (or image based in some instances of search marketing) ads. This relatively young industry has been slow to adopt the term ‘agency’ however with the creation of ads (either text or image) and media purchases they do qualify technically as an ‘advertising agency’ as well as recent studies suggest that both SEO and SEM are set to outpace magazine spending in the next 3-5 years. Not all advertising is created by agencies. Companies that create and plan their own advertising are said to do their work in house. An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising (and sometimes other forms of promotion) for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client’s products or services. An agency can also handle overall marketing and branding strategies and sales promotion for its clients. Typical ad agency clients include businesses and corporations, non-profit organization and government agencies. Agencies may be hired to produce single ads or, more commonly, ongoing series of related ads, called an advertising campaign.
All marketing campaigns are an invitation to solve a problem.
Being digital just means understanding how the new toolkit can help solve certain problems. If a low-tech solution is cheaper, faster or better, then why go high tech? Whatever works best, works best. It’s not even about digital. It’s about integration.
