How Are Agencies Keeping Up With New Technologies?

Every week brings another potential breakthrough in the fast-changing digital media world. The interactive ad industry, which has always been based on the premise that change is ongoing and positive, has seen so many recent shifts that agencies are finding themselves in a race to stay ahead.One week blogs are the next big thing, only to be trumped by podcasts, video-game ads, RSS feeds, mobile marketing, video on demand, and so on. "The speed [at which] these things are coming is tremendous," said John Cate, national media director at Aegis' Carat Fusion, who noted that in the last year the agency has gone from just talking about VOD to actively planning VOD ad campaigns.To keep their clients ahead of the pack, some agencies are identifying teams to tackle emerging technologies, while others are taking a less formal, more distributed approach out of fear of squelching innovation. The goal for both strategies is the same: separate the gee-whiz technologies that can help a client's business from those not yet ready for prime time.At Carat Fusion, the torrent of new technologies over the past year led to an accompanying flood of e-mail messages bouncing around the agency, noting new innovations that could be used for clients. In an effort to formalize this exploration, Carat Fusion began an "experts" program in August that identified 15 key emerging technology areas—Podcasting, blogging and satellite radio, among others—and dedicated a point person for each to delve deeper. The experts, drawn from the agency's senior account managers, develop an off-the-shelf presentation that analyzes each of their specialties to inform other Carat Fusion offices how to include new technologies in campaigns.Education within the agency was a major impetus behind WPP Group's OgilvyInteractive's decision in February to set up a digital innovation unit. The two-person group has put on road shows at agency offices that examine broadband applications, mobile marketing and gaming. "It's almost impossible for someone doing another job to keep on top of [new technology channels]," said Maria Mandel, director of the unit. Agencies with international reach are looking to exploit the uneven worldwide adoption of new technologies, such as South America's high use of social networking and Asia's wireless craze. Havas' Media Contacts is leaning on its international network in 21 countries to draw on local expertise in relatively new areas like blogging and mobile marketing, which can then be spread to other offices. For example, the Brazil office is taking the lead on blogging because of its design experience. Publicis Groupe's Arc Worldwide two months ago created Arc Edge, an in-house innovation think tank of 30 specialists in a half dozen countries. "Our guys in Tokyo know more about mobile marketing than anybody in the world," said Marc Landsberg, CEO of Arc Worldwide, adding that the unit is banking on a certain amount of "repeatability" in regard to using technology for campaigns.On the other hand, some agencies balk at such a formalized approach. At Omnicom's Web shop Organic, the agency relies on an in-house e-mail list and blog to act as a virtual R&D lab. This inclusive tact allows more of a free-flowing exchange, according to CEO Mark Kingdon. "At the end of the day, we have the right answers because we've pinged it from so many directions," he said.Clark Kokich, president of aQuantive's Avenue A/Razorfish, believes expert teams would only stifle account teams from coming up with creative solutions to client problems. Instead, Avenue A/Razorfish tries to spread the failures and successes across the agency's offices. Kokich compares the approach to the open-source, user-created Wikipedia, as opposed to the top-down, expert-edited Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Every innovation we've had has come from a team trying to solve a client's problem," Kokich said. "It didn't come from an elite group working in some corner of the building."

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How Are Agencies Keeping Up With New Technologies?

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