blog

Hey BJ. Thought I'd give you a view from a small traditional ad agency in a secondary market. Frankly, we feel the heat primarily in web design. That seems to be the area where the initial vulnerability becomes apparent. There is a reluctance to staff for this, especially on the programming side. The result is a reliance on outside resources which is usually fine but does not allow for the kind of responsiveness that there would be otherwise.

The other thing I notice is that clients are broadly aware of the trends towards digital and the first place they look is to their ad agency who is usually scrambling to identify another external resource that can provide guidance in the area of SEO or SEM or Web 2.0 trends. This is probably not the case in the major markets but I would predict there are thousands of smaller firms in secondary markets that are quite vulnerable to the emerging tier of interactive shops that will usurp part of the marketing budget that would have been their's 10 years ago.

It's kind of like global warming. First you think, "What's all the hype about?" Then you think, "Everybody else is jumping on this bandwagon so I guess I should start looking into this." Then  the ice caps melt and your beachfront property is now 5 miles out at sea and you think, "Sheesh, maybe I should have taken this warming thing a bit more seriously."

Excellent post and insight.  I particularly like the conclusion about being a "strategist".  It's an excellent point and we should all strive to be knowledgeable and provide the value-added services.  At a meeting yesterday I heard this comment: Why struggle at something when someone else does it quite well.  I think that surrounding oneself with a team that complements each others skillset is another facet to consider.

Your last statement is something often taught in leadership programs about surrounding yourself with experts, winners, etc. Well said.

Nice comments and thoughts. A prime example of a small agency that "gets it" is 37 Signals. 8 members around the globe with varied backgrounds and know-how; developing 'solutions' based on customer needs. @Tanya: Where are you getting your degree? If your University doesn't offer courses in E-Commerce or Search Marketing, you should be able to take such a course at another University? And get credit for the work. Check with your advisor, and good luck! Tons of stuff online too. Good books as well. Take a look at the University of Baltimore: UBALT . Cheers~ Elias

I'm jumping on your last few comments here.  I'm an advertising student. According to our student marketers group, there's only two of us here at Gooruze. You seemed to have thought a lot about hiring and talent. A lot of schools don't teach interactive/SEO/internet marketing. Even if they do, they're never as up-to-date as people in the field. I'm currently doing an internship in SEO/internet marketing. Do you think that's a good way for companies to find and train young talent? Are there things young people can do to be more hire-able? I liked your idea of hybrid talent, but you talk about experience. Can someone without experience be talent? And you talked about digital and interactive agencies. I've always felt both digital and interactive should be more integrated with other marketing efforts as only a full service agency can do. Do you have any thoughts on that? Which are better to work for and gain experience, etc?

Sorry for all the questions, but I like picking the brains of a pro when I get a chance.

Hi Tanya, like any good online marketing student you ask all of the right questions so I'm going to spend the time to answer each of them as you remind me of quite a few former associates that were right out of university with degrees in Marketing and they all had taken some kind of "integrated marketing course."

1. Do you think that's a good way for companies to find and train young talent?
I think and know it's a great way to open a door to someone you see potential in. I've had the pleasure over the past few years of working with bright, young marketers in the foundational years of their careers. From just graduating to moving from an in-house role to an agency to being an intern who starved for knowledge and jammed up my IM with daily questions. What better way than to take the skills someone has learned and shape them so they start at the right point in every decision they have to make. That's what it really comes down to, making decisions. No matter if it's deciding what ad copy to use based on A/B testing or what communication channels to invest in based on your target audience profiling; you're the one who has to decide if you're in that role of decision-maker. If you're not, you're influencing someone else's decision, whether a client, manager or account executive.

2. Are there things young people can do to be more hire-able?
Sure are. Passion will steer your career. It will allow you to stay up late reading authority blogs, consuming white papers on studies done by agencies on vertical markets, sifting through your RSS feed reader on the latest news, trying to figure out how to setup Wordpress and get your own blog out there, publishing your own point of view and applying what you learned at school to the real world. I've had students bring in marketing plans they developed, campaigns they created for local businesses, reports they had for freelance clients and so on. Experience is key, but MY opinion is that if I see that passion in an entry-level/associate person and they have a solid traditional marketing foundation then they may just be worth investing in.

3. Which are better to work for and gain experience, etc?
I guess when I mentioned "digital" and "interactive" I was being a bit fecitious because they both do marketing and MY opinion is that agencies create these word associations because it portrays a difference in business model or brand. Isn't digital the same as interactive? What's the difference? Let's do a test: (these kinds of things can help you gain experience)

1) Google Search: digital marketing agency (12.6M listings)
Result: icrossing.com says they are a Digital Marketing Agency and Search Engine Marketing Firm, dtelepathy.com says they are Internet Marketing Strategy and Web 2.0 Consulting (I worked here and we were ranked #1, #2 organically for digital marketing agency for awhile)

2) Google Search: interactive marketing agency (4.7M listings)
Result: yooter.com says they are Strategic Interactive and Social Marketing Agency, jivaldi.com says they are Marketing Agency and Web Design

Commonalities: Lots of companies that do the same thing, but at the point of creating their brand and mission statement decided that it was best to use a variety of adjectives about what they do. IF you want to read more about how agencies are constructed from the inside out, take a gander at this book: http://www.standforyourbrand.com/

Back to your question ... which is better? Neither. You should be making your career decisions based off of a company's reputation, client list, work environment, opportunity for advancement, mentorship, training programs, etc. There's no hard in starting at a small, local shop and working your way up. At this point in the industry, the big TOP 50 Interactive Agencies are pooling talent from all over the world and they realize there is a lot of talent in small shops, hence why they are buying up little "digital agencies" in the past 12 months.

Hope this all helps and if not feel free to message me with more questions! Welcome to Gooruze and tell all of your classmates and professors about us; if this was around when I was in school; I'd have even more skills to add to my arsenal ;)

I feel the point of a digital agency is not to shift the entire effort online. Recently at a conference I heard a representative of cnet.com say "television advertising is dead" and I couldn't help but think about how not true that is. Basically an online strategy should sit seamlessly with television advertising / print etc. Chances are no one agency can handle all of this effectively.

Recently I found this guide on www.demonzmedia.com/DemonzBlog/ which explains how to track down digital marketing agencies via successful campaigns as some of the best agencies do not advertise in - well... their advertising as they are focused on promoting their client's products. Alot of the time it's getting the right group of agencies together on a project that can make or break a promotion.