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.