4A's Creates Digital Board

NEW YORK The American Association of Advertising Agencies has formed a digital board designed to give the trade group insight into the issues facing the interactive industry. R/GA CEO Bob Greenberg will chair the six-person board. Its other members are: Ogilvy North America CEO Carla Hendra; Razorfish CEO Clark Kokich; Digitas CEO Laura Lang; Organic chairman Jonathan Nelson; and Wunderman chief operating officer David Sable. The 4A's said additional members could be added. The group joins long-standing advisory boards on issues like media, human resources and print. Like the industry overall, the 4A's is attempting to solve a dilemma. As more communication and media becomes digital, the line blurs between traditional and digital agencies. At the same time, digital shops are still different, for the most part, from their traditional brethren. "We need a group of people who can really focus on the issues facing not just the digital agencies but the digital community at large," said 4A's CEO Nancy Hill (pictured above). "The best way to do that is have the people working on it the longest focus on it." Hill pointed to a recent study the 4A's did on agency compensation for digital agencies. While the lines between digital and traditional agencies blur, there are still differences in how clients treat them -- and pay them, she said. "Clients still have a bit of a learning curve of how to work with the digital community, whether that's R/GA or a digital arm of another agency," she said. One task for the new board is to help the 4A's develop educational programs and advise on public policy positions, such as new regulations on collecting consumer data online. The 4A's also said it would give "expert perspectives on how traditional agencies can better transition to new agency models." "They can help the entire community with the transition we're in the middle of with issues regarding talent, compensation and public policy," Hill said. As part of its efforts under Hill to become digital savvy, the 4A's is collaborating with the Interactive Advertising Bureau to build the Creative Technology Conference later in the year.

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4A's Creates Digital Board

Brian Morrissey

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