Ryan MacMillan

In his article ‘The Agency Of The Future–Or, Now What?’, Carat Fusion’s Cory Treffiletti writes that

Every few months, there’s a new technology or a new tool launched [...] but not all of them are appropriate for your client or your brand. How do you make sense of all these twists and turns [...] How do you decide what and what not to include?

Well Cory’s rather optimistic view is that it’s the client’s marketing agencies who can answer these vital questions. And that might be true, unless of course the agency in question has some kind of vested interest in a particular production method or media platform. Web agencies are just as likely to propose a web site to a client as an old school advertising agency is likely to be guilty of ‘the answer is a 30 second TVC - now what was the question?’. This is why media neutral agencies like Naked have come to the fore. Clients are always going to be suspicious of their agency’s advice if it benefits the agency financially or strategically. And rightly so. So what is the new model? Either super agencies who can do any / everything or agencies who just do the thinking?

As digital becomes a minefield of opportunity it is increasingly a job just to be mindful of the potential of every new development. To satisfy their claims of being a ‘full service digital agency’ would require these agencies to add a new development team every couple of months just to keep up with the emerging technologies, let alone develop technologies of their own. It’s just not possible - let alone believeable.

We think the best model is just to think. And then find clever people who can do.