Social is going to be digital all over again for ad agencies

Whilst watching the Facebook Marketing Conference in New York the other day (you can catch up with all the talks on the LiveStream link here), I was enormously happy to hear Nigel Morris (@NigelDMorris) from Aegis’s comments on how ad agencies need to adapt for social. Watch the video below and listen particularly to Nigel’s comments from the 13 minute mark. Nigel talks about a dual challenge that is on the one hand talent based (who they are, where to find them, how to manage and keep them), but also an organisational design element which is how we integrate these people into the organisation, and change the structure of the existing people and departments within the agency to handle a social and digital world.

These are some of the same challenges the agencies have already been facing when we talk about integrating the ‘digital’ competence, but I feel that ‘social’ is going to have a broader and deeper reach into these organisations and will require more radical change.

 

Similarly I would recommend reading the follow up to Rei Inamoto’s (@ReiInamoto) article on “Why Ad Agencies Should Act More Like Tech Startups” – Madison Avenue’s Identity Crisis (and Why Silicon Valley Still needs to learn from the Ad Industry) on Fast Company Co Create as he talks about the same issues and how ad agencies need to learn from Silicon Valley, and vice versa, by bringing in the right people and also changing themselves at the same time.

 

Hat tip to @LeFreddie for the FastCo article.

By Lex Bradshaw-Zanger

A digital native and integrated brand marketer with a passion for marketing-communications and product design, Lex has a truly international outlook and experience, having worked both in major marketing agencies and client-side brands across Europe, the US and the Middle East.

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