A tale of confused agencies

Here’s an excellent post about adding digital capabilities to a traditional advertising agency.

It begs two questions:

1. Some ad agencies start by hiring a couple of high-level digital strategist/biz dev sorts while outsourcing production. On the other hand, I recently heard of one that hired a bunch of interactive designers and programmers for starters, with strategy and concepts dictated by the mainstream folks, before bringing in some higher-level digital staff to address the balance of clout. Which works better?

I’m inclined to believe in the former model.

A digital strategist, a technical consultant and a creative staffer should be brought on board and accorded standing equal to their mainstream counterparts.

2. The assumption seems to be that all that glitters is digital, and everyone is joining in the gold rush. For argument’s sake, what if the reverse was true – and a digital agency wanted to grow a mainstream advertising arm?

Designers will have their learnings cut out for them; suits will have to strengthen their grasp of marketing principles; and writers will take over the special place programmers currently occupy in designers’ lives.

But I’d like to think that overall, the curve won’t be as steep.