Pattern Recognition, as always interesting, triggered a new post, which I just avoided giving a slightly different title, more in the manner of the post quoted.
The topic is the claimed disruptiveness of digital agencies. In fact where I work now, we almost claim this as well. Still seeing myself as an advertising planner, I often feel a bit uncomfortable about that. Anyway, the supposed new nature of digital agencies is very well captured in this picture from the post:
Manging to fill this middle space, obviously, would be great. However, I suspect that the fact that digital agencies think that they fill it is not only due to the brilliance of these agencies. Digital technology still being rather immature calls for a more integrated approach to organising projects.
Ad agencies used to be much closer linked to production (and media for that sake), but as things evolved managing the interfaces between the two seemingly became easier, and specialised organisations evolved. My feeling is that something similar will happen in the digital realm. At the moment production of good digital products depend on a strong integration of content and concept. Using different agencies for different parts of the solution adds organisational complexity. This is less grave for digital campaigns, and more so for, say, bigger web solutions. Arguably excellent advertising agencies, still work rather integrated and get better work done. However, as technology evolves, most digital agencies might follow down the track of most advertising agencies, and the middle field of a new matrix is set to be filled again.
Not sure about this, but at least I got the odd bi-monthly post out.
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