Following my post on Saatchi2.0 I would like to talk more about the subject of agency2.0.

What does a future advertising agency look like? What is its role, its structure? What can we learn from pure digital agencies and other online businesses in general? What can a traditional agency do to stay alive and revive?

In the Businessweek interview I mentioned earlier, I read that Saatchi & Saatchi has tried to buy a digital agency Blast Radius. It didn’t work out since Blast Radius merged with Wunderman, a large direct marketer. What is the real reason behind this? Was it a cultural difference or a pure strategical decision?

After some short research (I will come back to this subject). I found some well known insights digital agencies come up with:

• stop annoying customers, start engaging
• stop delivering ads for clients, start delivering strategies on advertising
• get insights through data, customerinfo and testing

I my opinion the field of advertising is only getting more interesting since agencies must and can focus on their core business “ideas”. And they get more means to generate and spread these ideas.

Looking at how this could look like in practice. I did check the Nitro website. What do they do for a living? As they say, they deliver:

• Innovation
• Communications
• Digital

some links on the subject:

The agency of the future
The agency of the future 2
The agency of the future 3
The agency of the future 4

Technorati Profile

April 18th there was the Innovative advertising awards 2008 gala in New York City. Formerly known as the Interactive and New Media Awards.

In their own worlds:

New York Festivals was the first to create an international competition recognizing the importance and marketing value of innovative media.

Some of the categories in this competition include: Advergames and Viral Advertising for products or services; Online Advertising, including integrated campaigns that include online elements; a wide selection of categories for Guerrilla Marketing and Alternative Media, such as ambient, event and mobile marketing, blogs, short message systems, and street teams; and CD-ROM applications.

To be honest the New York Festivals website is a bit user unfriendly with all the winners info in pdf-format. But I understand that Stella Artois is the big winner.

There where three Swiss winners. DRAFTFCB got a Silver Worldmedal for their viral campaign (see picture above).