Categories: Articles

Ad Age Discusses New Agency Models

Ad Age recently published a great read and fascinating article, In Search Of A New Ad Agency Model, on March Th, 2005. Jonah Bloom reports on how certain smaller shops are gaining serious ground by understanding all of the new mediums and how to offer true full-service with a smaller and more nimble group.
Here’s the irony: I passed the article around at Twist Image today and one of my associates replied: “so… We’ve been doing this since early 2000.” While his comment made me smile, it also made me realize that we can turn a battleship in a bathtub – most “traditional” agencies can or have not.
The search for a true agency is only frustrated further by the fact that many agencies claim to have as advanced technology knowledge as their creative work. It turns out, more times than not, the clients coming to the table know much more about how to make things work in newer mediums and across channels than the agencies.
I hope Ad Age continues on this path of discovery by featuring these types of agencies and studios who have one-tenth the employees but execute with superior speed, efficiency and results. I’ve been amazed at what can be done by a small team that gets it.
This is not a scathing finger-pointing Blog posting. It’s a call to action for all marketers to get in the know with what’s going on – from online, wireless, narrowcasting to the many new channels that are proving to provide real value and concrete results.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.