Digital agencies are facing challenges because the definition of "digital" has changed. While digital media usage has increased, agencies are still seen as add-ons rather than leaders in campaign development. Additionally, agencies focus too much on measuring irrelevant metrics like social media engagement. Agencies must view digital as a solution to business problems rather than just a distribution channel. To remain valuable partners, agencies need to get more involved in helping clients reinvent their businesses and address consumer needs in new ways beyond traditional communications.

1. The future of the digital agency
(or digital is dead; long live
digital)
Dan Hocking
Managing Partner, Holler
Group Digital Operations Director, Leo Burnett

2. ME
(@danhocking)

3. Digital agencies are in
trouble.

4. Context:
The definition of ‘digital’
has changed over the
years

5. And it’s overtaken TV in (nearly) all markets
Source: Millward Brown AdReaction

6. That’s a good thing
for digital agencies,
right?

7. Not exactly.
We’re not helping our
own cause.

8. There are 5 key
reasons why.

9. 1. These days, for
most,
digital = content

10. But everyone is trying
to do content.

11. And I mean everyone.
ATL/Integrated agencies, media
agencies, PR agencies, production
agencies…

12. Content has become the
answer to the question
nobody is asking.
Because nobody says ‘I’m
going to go visit my favourite
brand channel’ when they
wake up.

13. And the things we’re
making… aren’t
always good.

14. At scale, we can’t compete in the
long term with integrated
agencies who can offer ‘content’
as an add-on to their existing
work.
And by trying to do so cheaply/
quickly, we’re making it worse.

15. 2. We’re still an add-
on, despite our ‘best
efforts.’

16. We get invited to the
brand planning table
now (that’s good!)

17. But digital agencies are
still mostly challenged
with making a campaign
bigger

18. Rather than making
the campaign.

19. There’s a big reason
for that:

20. 3. We’re obsessed
with measuring things
that don’t matter.

21. Likes, comments,
shares, engagement,
retweets, page visits,
time on site, app
downloads

22. So what?

23. Our clients are in the
business of selling products,
and we build brands in order
to help do so.
But none of the digital
measures evaluate either of
those.

24. Advertising’s dirty
secret is that many of
our communication
measures are
scientifically dubious.

25. We’ve got lots of data that we
can assess to see what
people actually do and
assess a real long-term
impact.
We just waste it on
measuring content
performance instead.

26. 4. We’ve let
publishers and tech
platforms define
mobile advertising,
not us.

27. Mobile is the dominant way
people access the internet,
worldwide.
This is so ubiquitous, it
doesn’t even need a source
anymore.

28. We’ve tried to treat
mobile the same way
we treated the desktop
(or worse, as ‘desktop
light’).

29. And we’ve taken the
same principles to
advertising and applied
them to the smaller
screen.

30. That didn’t exactly impress the creator
of the banner ad.
‘It’s tough for me to see the banner paradigm being the main unit.
The fact that it’s migrated from Prodigy to the Internet to the cell
phone is a joke. The creativity is disappointing at best.’
-G.M O’Connell, Founder of Modem Media (creator of the first banner ad), in a 2013 interview
with Digiday

31. And it’s made it even
more something we
just ignore.

32. 5. We largely use
digital as a means of
distribution

33. Digital has leveled the
playing field in so
many industries.

34. It allows people to
create, broadcast and
interact in ways not
possible previously.

35. People are using it to
make new and clever
things every day.

36. But we’re more obsessed
with clever ways we can
push out content at
people in a way that
doesn’t feel like we’re
pushing.

37. We see digital as a
communications
channel solely.
As a vertical which we
need to fill.

38. All around us, people are
changing the way they
interact everyday and
creating new businesses
from nothing.
And we’re queueing up our
next preroll campaign.

39. All sounds quite
troubling, doesn’t it?

40. It’s up to us to change, so
that it’s not.
And we’re more than capable
of doing so.

41. We know digital
behaviour as well as
anyone does – we study
it and apply it in many
different ways.

42. As digital practitioners,
we should be looking at
digital as a horizontal,
not a vertical.

43. If you took a business
problem and applied
that thinking to it, what
would that be?

44. The answer won’t
always be
communications –
and that’s no bad
thing.

45. How can we apply what we
know to help our clients
change their businesses to
be more relevant and more
successful?

46. And how do we help
make that happen for
them? (because change
is hard and scary.)

47. In order for us to play a
valuable role, we need to get
more upstream in businesses;
solving business problems
rather than just
communications ones.

48. Which, actually, gets
back to advertising’s
roots in the first place.

49. The answer might still involve
communications.
But it could also involve
something like creating a new
way for consumers to
purchase the brand, or a
different expression of what
the product is.

50. So, the next brief you get that
asks for a bunch of social
content, ask ‘why?’
Try to get to the bottom of
what the business problem is.
And if there’s a different
solution than what they asked
for, be bold and share it.

51. We need to help our
clients invent new ways
to address problems
their consumers are
facing.

52. Because if we don’t carry
ourselves that way, our
clients will never look at us
that way.

53. It’s on us to change
how we do things.

54. Thank you!
@danhocking