Are digital agencies the new dinosaurs? Campaign asks.
Campaign magazine, in a moment of breathtaking and rather wonderful impertinence, recently ran a feature asking if digital agencies are the new dinosaurs.
A selection of agency bods then opined. Somehow Campaign failed to ask me, but if they had, this would have been my reply:
Are Digital Agencies the new dinosaurs?
If they are, that must make ad agencies crocodilians - the great survivors, that lurked in nightmarish swamps before the coming of the dinosaurs, and lurk there still, ready to feast on the unwary.
However accurate a description that may be, the more prosaic truth is any agency defining itself in terms of a single medium (even one as all-encompassing as 'digital') is answering a single question. A question about how to reach people, moreover, that should not be asked before a number of others have been answered. More fundamental questions, such as who, what, when and where?
There was certainly a time when being digital was different, and made you stand out. We are way past the tipping point now though, and the more surprising thing would be to proclaim oneself analogue.
Look at photography. Almost all cameras are digital now, and hardly need labeling as such. Film cameras are rare, and the preserve of specialists. Kodachrome, the defining colour film of the last 75 years, has just been killed off. Photography means digital.
If you use apps like Hipstamatic, Best Camera or Camera Bag, you can recreate many of the wonderful effects of analogue film, digitally, on your phone. The result is that the creative possibilities for a photographer are far more numerous. But when you stand in front of a beautiful photograph, you neither know nor care how it was created, just whether it moves you or not.
Photographers have responded to constant changes in technology by turning them to advantage, while also recognising that the most important part of their equipment is just behind the viewfinder.
The same is true for us.
And by the way, it is generally accepted that the dinosaurs evolved into birds. Some sing, some fly, some have beautiful plumage, and they are everywhere in the world. None of which can be said of crocodiles.
Paul Kitcatt
Chief Creative Officer
Comments
14 February 11
By: Lazar
That silly game goes on and on
Can't agree more with you Paul. Campaign has to sell (and also it helps to appease some of the old ATL masters) hence the ridiculous claim. Digital or not, good agencies stay, bad agencies go under. The good are those who can adopt new practices and learn; the bad, those who can't. If there is a grain of truth in the Campaign headline, it would have to have something with the primacy of an idea, as technology alone is not enough. We don't need a lab coat to create digital advertising anymore.
14 February 11
By: Chris Lonie
Chutzpah
Campaign magazine talking about dinosaurs. You've gotta laugh.
23 March 11
By: Ruth Ferrier
The idea has to come first.
I couldn’t agree more. What’s important is the message itself, and whether that message is put across in ITS most effective medium. By picking only one medium for an agency to use, (such as digital) it severely compromises the sensitivity with which an idea can be portrayed. When digital first came about, (as with anything new) it had the advantage of being unusual and exciting, and therefore could be more effective, now digital is commonplace and it lacks that headstart over other media.
To take your analogy with crocodiles that bit further though, dinosaurs had to evolve because they were no longer suited to the conditions of the world, whereas crocodiles have remained much the same for millions of years and are still alive and thriving.
23 March 11
By: Ruth Ferrier
The idea has to come first.
I couldn’t agree more. What’s important is the message itself, and whether that message is put across in ITS most effective medium. By picking only one medium for an agency to use, (such as digital) it severely compromises the sensitivity with which an idea can be portrayed. When digital first came about, (as with anything new) it had the advantage of being unusual and exciting, and therefore could be more effective, now digital is commonplace and it lacks that headstart over other media.
To take your analogy with crocodiles that bit further though, dinosaurs had to evolve because they were no longer suited to the conditions of the world, whereas crocodiles have remained much the same for millions of years and are still alive and thriving.