Advertising Age Agency of the Year
Following on from Time magazine awarding its Person of the Year to me (and you), Advertising has also recognised our excellence my naming us all Agency of the Year. Taking an overview of the rise of the visible consumer, the person with access to the web and creative tools who refuse to just listen to the marketing messages but want to do their own, the article is the latest of those that examine the future of the ad agency and whether it has relevance in the current world.
A key point is that the user has always been in control of their perception of the brand but their ability to share it was usually restricted to those people they know; the sphere of influence was small. The tools available now allow our views to be spread to far more people.
So what does that mean to the agency? Media fragmentation means they have to think wider than the one channel. Transmedia is a way to increase the possibility of getting attention, but care needs to be taken about rising costs with multiple presentations of the messages.
AdAge suggests three ways of looking at the current situation:
- The first is that it is all over. The agencies should pack up and go home. But that is a message that has been around for a while, everytime the landscape changes, so it is like crying wolf, the idea gets ignored.
- the second is view is that nothing has changed. This is just a blip in the advertising world and they can carry on as before, ignoring what is happening, or at least only pay lip service to it
- the third is the middle way. That there is changing world and the agencies have to adapt.
I don’t think that it would surprise you that I’m a supporter of the third way. Agencies have to change, have to listen. Have to think differently. Quick and cheap will go hand in hand with the big campaign, complementing and supplementing the TV ad, the big sponsorship deal, the wall to wall store takeovers. Things need to be different and they are changing. And it’s fun to watch the successes and failures.
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POSTED IN: Engaging the Customer, User Generated Content
1 opinion for Advertising Age Agency of the Year
Dan M
Jan 17, 2007 at 3:25 pm
But do you think the industry will/can change quick enough - there is a clicking clock - tick tick tick - when the alarm goes off is tbd but there are huge generational, technology, expertise, biz model, etc. issues - no one goes away or do they? Is there a huge restructuring or does it happen by steps? Do we wake up one day and realize its changed?
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