Connecting the Dots / An Agency Blog

I had the chance tonight to attend a screening of the recently released Art & Copy documentary presented by BCAIM as part of Advertising Week. This is at times a humorous yet down to earth look inside the advertising business, from the perspectives of some of the biggest names in the agency world.

The film provides the context for advertising as we know it today, touching upon the space that the craft fills in modern culture. Some of the familiar subjects include industry icons including the blunt and animated George Lois, the man behind the idea of ‘The Big Idea’, Dan Wieden & David Kennedy of Just Do It fame, Jeff Goodby & Rich Silverstein, creators of the Got Milk? campaign, Hal Riney the creator of the classic american dream styled television spot, and Lee Clow, who’s work includes the much lauded 1984 spot for Apple and pretty much every campaign for that brand ever since Steve Jobs returned to steer the ship.

Continue…

Over at i [love] marketing, Ana Andjelic makes some valid and interesting points on the comparison of digital and traditional agencies in her post titled Why Digital Agencies Aren’t Ready to Lead. It’s an interesting issue to consider. With integration and convergence now more or less a no-brainer, you really can’t have a campaign span both traditional and non-traditional channels without providing a consistent experience (can you?).

Ana defines digital agencies as “focusing on experimentation”, spinning their wheels trying to out-create competing agencies by making bigger and more complex digital experiences, while traditional shops “thrive on exploitation”, leveraging their bag of marketing tricks. This equates to more of a typical business model – make it once and sell it over and over again. It’s true, digital shops are terrible at this.

Continue…

Social Network sites have long been the domain of a youthful digital culture, looking to connect and build friend circles away from the structure and convention of the real world. While this may still be the impression the general populace has on sites such as MySpace, many would be surprised to find out what makes Facebook truly stand out from the pack. Facebook comes of age and sets a pace to bring relevance to a more sophisticated user-base. More after the jump.

Continue…