More on the W+K/Nike story I mentioned last week, this time from the Wall Street Journal:
Industry executives say the move was a wake-up call to Madison Avenue. The message is clear: No matter how talented an agency's creative team or how well the client's management likes the firm's executives, the agency is of limited value unless it embraces digital media.
"We have to be thinking about ideas in all the channels and not just the [traditional] advertising channels," says David Murphy, former president of the Los Angeles office of Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi who recently left to open his own shop. Many traditional ad agencies, with roots in television and print, have been slow to grasp the impact of the Internet. In the past couple of years, as consumers and advertisers have begun shifting to the Internet, some agencies have responded by beefing up digital talent through both hiring and acquisition. But many firms don't have enough digital talent to meet client demand, and those that do often have kept the digital department separate from the rest of the firm. Wieden had hired some digital thinkers, but they were scattered through its offices around the globe. It wasn't until earlier this year, when it hired Renny Gleeson, a digital expert who had a top job at Aegis Group's Carat Fusion, that the shop began to take digital more seriously and teach digital know-how to the rest of its troops. Even so, Wieden could be doing more, people at the firm admit. Digital has long been "an afterthought here," says a person at the agency. "We do it but haven't done it to the level we need to." Meanwhile Nike, which has long used several digital specialist firms such as AKQA and Interpublic Group's R/GA in addition to Wieden, has been sending signals that it wanted a different approach. "Gone are the days of one shoe, one advertising campaign. Now you've got to engage consumers on every level," Trevor Edwards, Nike's vice president of global brand and category management, told The Wall Street Journal last summer. Nike now believes digital thinking should be at the heart of ad strategy, according to people familiar with the marketer's thinking. To make digital more central, it needs its main ad agency to be better skilled at digital techniques because the agency is developing ad strategy at the very early stages of a marketing campaign. Ad executives say more mainstream ad firms could lose business unless they figure out how to better integrate digital media. "If people aren't embracing digital they will get left behind; clients are already there and they are gravitating to agencies who get it," adds Mr. Murphy. Some agencies have tried to foster better collaboration between traditional and digital advertising. WPP Group's Ogilvy & Mather in 2005 named Jan Leth, executive creative director of the North American operations of its digital arm, OgilvyInteractive, to the additional post of co-chief creative officer for Ogilvy's New York office. Publicis Groupe, similarly, is considering merging Modem Media, a digital firm that it acquired as part of its recent $1.6 billion purchase of Digitas, into its Publicis ad agency, according to people familiar with the matter. Still, even with the best intentions, collaboration can be difficult to pull off, ad executives say. "The thing is all these things look good on paper but so did communism," says Matt Freeman, chief executive officer of Tribal DDB, the digital arm of Omnicom Group's DDB Worldwide. "At the end of the day it's all about who is in charge. ... Traditional ad people are in favor of integration as long as they are in control. It still comes down to who reports to who and egos."
"We have to be thinking about ideas in all the channels and not just the [traditional] advertising channels," says David Murphy, former president of the Los Angeles office of Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi who recently left to open his own shop.
Many traditional ad agencies, with roots in television and print, have been slow to grasp the impact of the Internet. In the past couple of years, as consumers and advertisers have begun shifting to the Internet, some agencies have responded by beefing up digital talent through both hiring and acquisition. But many firms don't have enough digital talent to meet client demand, and those that do often have kept the digital department separate from the rest of the firm.
Wieden had hired some digital thinkers, but they were scattered through its offices around the globe. It wasn't until earlier this year, when it hired Renny Gleeson, a digital expert who had a top job at Aegis Group's Carat Fusion, that the shop began to take digital more seriously and teach digital know-how to the rest of its troops.
Even so, Wieden could be doing more, people at the firm admit. Digital has long been "an afterthought here," says a person at the agency. "We do it but haven't done it to the level we need to."
Meanwhile Nike, which has long used several digital specialist firms such as AKQA and Interpublic Group's R/GA in addition to Wieden, has been sending signals that it wanted a different approach. "Gone are the days of one shoe, one advertising campaign. Now you've got to engage consumers on every level," Trevor Edwards, Nike's vice president of global brand and category management, told The Wall Street Journal last summer.
Nike now believes digital thinking should be at the heart of ad strategy, according to people familiar with the marketer's thinking. To make digital more central, it needs its main ad agency to be better skilled at digital techniques because the agency is developing ad strategy at the very early stages of a marketing campaign.
Ad executives say more mainstream ad firms could lose business unless they figure out how to better integrate digital media. "If people aren't embracing digital they will get left behind; clients are already there and they are gravitating to agencies who get it," adds Mr. Murphy.
Some agencies have tried to foster better collaboration between traditional and digital advertising. WPP Group's Ogilvy & Mather in 2005 named Jan Leth, executive creative director of the North American operations of its digital arm, OgilvyInteractive, to the additional post of co-chief creative officer for Ogilvy's New York office.
Publicis Groupe, similarly, is considering merging Modem Media, a digital firm that it acquired as part of its recent $1.6 billion purchase of Digitas, into its Publicis ad agency, according to people familiar with the matter.
Still, even with the best intentions, collaboration can be difficult to pull off, ad executives say.
"The thing is all these things look good on paper but so did communism," says Matt Freeman, chief executive officer of Tribal DDB, the digital arm of Omnicom Group's DDB Worldwide. "At the end of the day it's all about who is in charge. ... Traditional ad people are in favor of integration as long as they are in control. It still comes down to who reports to who and egos."
Neil?
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Robin Grant
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