Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This

Figure 15.1 Every new technology leaves its victims. Don't become one.

15Surviving the Digital TsunamiOr, How to Be a One, Not a Zero

By the time you get done reading this book, digital will have disrupted another aspect of the advertising industry. Some agency will have been fired. Another will have folded. And some creative director will have been put out to pasture, all because they didn't become digitally centric enough, fast enough.

If you think this is an exaggeration, it's not. At the moment this passage is being written, there is $26 billion of advertising spending under review, more than the amount that went under review in the last three years combined. Certainly, there are many reasons advertisers might reevaluate their agencies, but the one at the top of many lists is clients are striving to “optimize spending in an increasingly digital environment.”¹

“Agencies continue to have a hard time with the pace of change,” confirms Smith and Beta's Allison Kent-Smith. “We find most don't know enough about technology and what's happening in these spaces of innovation. They struggle with developing new skill sets, acquiring the right talent, mastering new ways of working, and evolving their organizations.”

All of this is just a reminder. You want to part of the solution.

It's a fact of life that new technologies and platforms will continue to influence how, when, and where ...