Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

The rise of digital marketing and social media will require agencies to make significant changes to stay ahead of the competition. As digital marketing has continued to become a powerhouse in the marketing tool belt it has required agencies to consider how they can best serve the needs of the brands they serve. We’ve seen agencies slap social media on their list of services with little true expertise. Now we are seeing agencies slap content marketing on their list of services as it has become the new cool that everyone is all the rage about.

This is a natural progression of service offerings and frankly agencies have to figure out how to provide these services because their clients are starting to demand them. We’ve seen transformation in the traditional full-service agency as well as a resurgence for boutique digital marketing and social media firms. But is that enough? The report “The Digital Marketing Agency of the Future” released today by Skyword argues that it isn’t even close to enough. They took the insights of 16 innovative agency leaders and created a forward thinking view of what tomorrow’s digital agency needs to look like....

I have an unshakable belief that we’re living, right now, in one of the most crazy awesome times in human history. I believe that in 100 years from now, people will look back at the turn of the 21st century and say “Dayam, I wish I lived then!” – sorta like we do now thinking back to the 60’s, or the Enlightenment, or the industrial revolution, or the 80’s. Na, just kidding – the 80’s sucked.

Scalable areas like media placement are becoming competitive and crowded, and more and more agencies are entering the arena. Often these new agencies are more energetic and better looking than us. Damn those little punks to hell.Think about it. We’re living in a time where digital communication is changing everything. You know that right? Of course you do.

The question really is, what are you doing about it?So, running an agency, as I do, the question becomes even more critical. I’m at the forefront of all this stuff. We get updates daily, hourly, every .minute, on new shit that’s getting done. Innovations, inventions, disruptions: these are the things that mark this amazing pocket of time called the digital age....

...We are still very much in the ideas business. Despite how much more sophisticated the algorithms get at search, contextual and behavioral ad serving, advertising still has to move you. And that comes down to the kind of creative that makes you feel an emotion... not just "think" or push you into "lower funnel" activation as many marketers are so anxious to do.

This means drawing you in, getting you involved, and making you react emotionally, which is just as important on a hand-held device as it is in a 30-second TV spot. Creatively, this has been the challenge for the web banner, the video pre-roll, and even the next in-app-native touch-screen rich-media ad. These units may drive our impression-based ad-supported model, but they've yet to adequately prove the ability to make the consumer feel....