I’ve had a few conversations recently about the changing remit of the advertising agency and the growing inter-relationships between different agencies, be they pure event/activation groups, web development or even media agencies. The question that always comes up (on both sides of the table) is whether the agencies will be able to get along. The…… Continue reading Can agencies really play nicely together?
Category: Traditional vs. Digital
The end of ATL/BTL, the birth of Paid, Owned, Earned
For the better part of 2010 and as both agency structures and the work we are doing becomes less TV and press centric and more about humans and ideas, we have been searching for the right terminology to break down the different parts of our work. The traditional ATL/BTL terminology is still very much prevalent…… Continue reading The end of ATL/BTL, the birth of Paid, Owned, Earned
The Chasm in Advertising
Advertising is dying, but this time from the inside. We’ve seen many of the recent articles in FastCompany (The Future of Advertising, 17 November 2010) and Business Week (Don Draper’s Revenge, 24 November 2010) talking about the future of the industry and although many would argue that the same story has been rolled out annually…… Continue reading The Chasm in Advertising
Learning to walk – by the book
The major challenge affecting agencies today is how to keep up with technology as it explodes in the communications landscape around us – never before in the history of the business have so many changes, happened so fast and with such greater impact. As we try to keep up, to learn, to understand and to…… Continue reading Learning to walk – by the book
When clients ask for bread, give them cake
Too often I hear account directors and those in client service complain that their clients are not ready, not mature enough or not open minded enough for us to deliver true integrated, multi-channel thinking against their briefs; and for this reason the briefs that are delivered to creative tend to be driven towards more traditional…… Continue reading When clients ask for bread, give them cake
Getting ready to ‘Make Digital Work’
In a couple of days I’m taking the 14 hour flight to head to New York for Colorado University’s, Boulder Digital Works Executive Workshop – Making Digital Work. This is the first time the programme has been run outside of Boulder and promises to be a hotbed of ideas and learning. The programme ran first…… Continue reading Getting ready to ‘Make Digital Work’
Marketing services should have acquired advertising
I’m slowly coming to the firm conclusion that marketing services (and all that it comprises) should have acquired advertising – and not the other way around which is what seems to have happened in the industry. Marketing Services (despite their appalling name) agencies had one of the most interesting remits of the late 90s and…… Continue reading Marketing services should have acquired advertising
Why advertising needs entrepreneurs
Regardless of whether you are part of a hot-shop 17-man creative boutique, or one of a 450-man flagship office of a global agency network, the advertising business still needs more than a healthy dose of entrepreneurs – and I think the industry is forgetting that. The challenge with this business, however large the brand name…… Continue reading Why advertising needs entrepreneurs
Tomorrow’s creative team
Back when Bill Bernbach changed the landscape of agencies by partnering art directors and copywriters we thought that this was a major revolution in agency team structure – finally the art department which had up until then really only been thought of as production took its merited role alongside the copywriters to come up with…… Continue reading Tomorrow’s creative team
Has ‘integration’ become a dirty word?
In the rush to evolve the skills of the advertising industry to keep up with an ever changing number of new media channels the buzzword for the last few years has been integration, bringing other skillsets and sometimes other agencies into the fold to deliver an integrated product – whether this was branding, digital or…… Continue reading Has ‘integration’ become a dirty word?