At present, a third of clients are utilizing outside expertise from the ad industry when it comes to handling their social media initiatives.
The continuing growth of digital media has resulted in a “great race” to adapt between specialist and traditional agencies, but neither group is fulfilling the needs of advertisers at present, Forrester has found. Forrester, the research firm, has produced a report aiming to assess how effectively interactive shops, and their more long-standing counterparts, are responding to the changing industry environment.
Sean Corcoran, an analyst at the Cambridge-based firm, argued “we see digital becoming the backbone of marketing and technology becoming so vital that everyone needs digital capabilities… Everyone is coming from a different strength. Everyone is trying to add the other’s capabilities,” he said.
The company conducted a survey of 100 interactive marketers around the world, and discovered that 80% of participants worked with at least one agency on their digital communications. More than half of this group used two such partners, while 25% divided up their new media chores between three separate firms. Despite this, over 60% of the panel said they would rather employ one such service provider to manage their various activities on platforms like mobile and the internet. At present, a third of clients are utilising outside expertise from the ad industry when it comes to handling their social media initiatives. One in four also look to their digital agency when developing their brand strategy, while 26% have requested offline creative work from this source. However, Forrester found that just 22% of its sample regarded their interactive agency as being “ready to lead my brand”, while 33% disagreed with this statement. Similarly, only 23% of contributors believed their “traditional brand agency” was suitably equipped to head up their new media operations, with 46% holding the opposing view.
“We’re all waiting for this big moment when a bunch of interactive agencies take over from the traditional guys,” said Corcoran. “It’s not happening that way, it’s a slow evolution. You’ll see some interactive guys take over and some traditional agencies hold the fort.”
Data sourced from MediaPost/AdWeek; additional content by Warc staff, 11 December 2009
iPhone
Facebook
Twitter
Vimeo
Subscribe
Newsletter
Comments
Track comments via RSS 2.0 feed. Feel free to post the comment, or trackback from your web site.
Great article, thanks for the insight. The Social Media boom has added yet another layer on top of the digital conundrum that traditional agencies are facing now. Social Media was born on the web so it naturally falls into the hands of “digital” however it is really nothing more than strategic conversation and a new platform to talk to the masses. Traditional agencies may be a bit overwhelmed by all the nuances and various apps, tools and advances in social media and how it pertains to integration with digital creative and technology executions. Social Media is truly the first new platform to be built upon the digital platform that has revolutionized the industry and changed all the rules. Digital shops seem more adept to handling these particular types of campaigns because they are so much more intimate with the medium. Social media is the best case study to date as to how the entire landscape of advertising is changing and how traditional agencies are becoming more like specialty shops as print and TV are becoming a smaller ad platform. Agencies like RGA and AKQA have been positioning themselves for this moment and brands who are adopting digital as their primary strategy are going to be migrating to these types of shops more often.
The only part of this article i have to disagree with is the quote “It’s not happening that way, it’s a slow evolution. You’ll see some interactive guys take over and some traditional agencies hold the fort.” I think that its happening much faster than anyone even fathoms. The rags don’t print every instance of a major brand contacting a smaller digital shop for work and as a business director at a smaller digital shop I can tell you first hand that its rampant.
2010 should be fun… here is my prediction http://webicrat.blogspot.com/2009/12/incalculable-probability.html
Twitter Comment
#Agencies struggle to meet clients’ #social needs [link to post] @seethereaction @olivemedia @benkunz @steveolenski
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
Creative pros need to be given ownership! Great article from Avi Savar of Big Fuel Agency – [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher