A Weighty Responsibility
We’ve got a new friend – Dave Birss, ex-CD of Poke. He is writing a number of articles on his great blog about how ATL agencies can and must adapt to digital skillsets. He reluctantly has come to the conclusion that money talks and it is the big boys who are going to win the traditional vs digital agency debate – and he sees it as his role to help them do the best work. Fair enough.
There are many points we can debate until les vaches make it back, but let’s just talk about the money. If ATL agencies are going to succeed in doing the best digital work they need to look at their processes and resultant costs. Digital is a dynamic medium whose beauty is in its efficiency. Efficiency in targeting and reaching hard-to-find audiences. Efficiency in ability to adapt and modify. Efficiency in being able to constantly improve itself. But MOST of all efficiency in cost and speed to market.
ATL agencies are however so governed by the hyper-charged ATL disciplines of planning, big creative ideas and naval-gazing that their digital work, may look good but it is too-often being charged for way, way over the odds and is often strategically (in terms of how people engage with the Internet) highly questionable.
This is NOT good for the industry. And it is NOT good for the clients. ATL agencies have a responsibility to deliver VALUE for money for their clients.
We watched one medium sized digital agency flush with embarassment earlier this year when they presented a case history of a brilliant campaign for one of the most revered brands in the country as they admitted that it cost a whopping £60k! £60k – that’s “thinking” money to many ATL agencies.
If the internet becomes all about big-boys, with big wallets pushing big-brands we will be back to the bad old days of Web 1.0 – god they were dull!
November 21st, 2008 at 5:15 pm
sam,
I think you are mistaken in your judgment of atl vs. digital agencies. this is not a matter of different disciplines but size. certain large clients require a large agency to service them well and certain small clients require a nimble agency to deliver the most bang for the buck. everyone having been not let into a pitch because the client was worried “an agency this size” could handle them properly knows this, as does everyone who ever lost a client because they asked for more than the client could afford.
both atl and digital agencies have their own set of problems. the traditional creative at an atl agency, I am talking here about the kind of guys who are forty and older, needs to wrap their head around why the kids use the web and get comfortable concepting for it right now or they will have a huge problem servicing their accounts. they don’t need to be able to code themselves, they just need to be able to concept and design. publicis nyc does this well, they have a massive digital department that works hand-in-hand with their atl teams.
digital agencies often have stellar capabilities as far as coding and polishing work is concerned but often lack dearly in their ability to concept – to come up with great ideas. eye candy only goes so far and if they don’t change quickly they’ll run the risk of being the digital equivalent of a post production house or editing suite for atl agencies with a few smaller clients that hire them directly. R/GA, again in nyc, is showing correctly how it’s done. their competency has been proven extensively on the nike business and they recently hired a boatload of traditional creatives to fatten up their conceptual capabilities. I expect them to emerge as a great example of an agency that soon will emerge as a next-gen full-servive agency, taking significant clients away from both traditional and digital shops to churn out completely integrated campaigns. I predict the large and small shops, who again go after different clients, to copy the principle. it wouldn’t be the first time they copied one of bob’s ideas. it was he after all who transformed his effects house into a digital agency when few in the states had heard of the concept to begin with.