This anonymous OpEd is in response to the Digital Done Right story, which is below. Take it away, anon.
The recent Op Ed piece on Digital Done Right and Wrong by Shape78 has been cause for much excitement in the comment section of this site. Some suggest traditional creatives would be wise to be scared of the impending digital agency takeover of our media universe, others laugh them off as vendors with an out-of-whack ego. Sometimes posturing and enthusiasm takes over but both sides do have their points.
First let’s establish some ground rules:
The web is as important to people now as TV is. it’s more important than radio and (depending on how old or urban you are) either slightly ahead or behind print. However some have not recognized that this is not a zero-sum game: there is one additional chair being added to the table and while nobody has to leave just yet everyone has to move closer together. There are also a host of kid chairs at the table that also take up their space. Take a look at all the different ways you now have to obtain a music track — itunes, brick-and-mortar store, online band store, myspace, at concerts, ringtones, ad sponsoring, cereal redemption codes, there must be a million ways to consume a track.
Let’s talk about what this means for creatives:
A creative who isn’t able to concept for the web has just as large a
hole in his book as one who doesn’t have a reel. You can rise through
the ranks only so far without it and getting hired will become
increasingly difficult. This creative is right to be scared of the
future.
A creative who only produces for the web should be scared as well.
Sure, there are plenty of jobs but there is a built-in ceiling. you
can only show digital work, so you will only be considered for digital
jobs. You cannot apply for certain agency jobs at a certain point in
your career because you can’t show certain work examples. You’re
pigeon-holing yourself.
The most-valuable and creative is and will be the one with the best
ideas. The person who has a great insight into a brand, product,
client, whatever, the one who can easily whack out 200 ways to execute
this great thought. If you have an idea like “What happens in Vegas
stays in Vegas,” and you have no trouble expressing this in print, on
tv, on the web and on the street, you’ll always have a great job,
especially as more and more clutter is competing for attention. It’s
that old “if you can’t outspend them outsmart them” line that Pat
Fallon and Tom McElligott coined.*
And now to the most important question of them all: are you,
traditional art director, copywriter, creative director, screwed in
your traditional agency? Should you bail, learn action script and get
on board with a digital shop? Is it time for the most fundamental
change of your career?
That depends.
Those screaming you’re worthless without a proper knowledge of SEO,
Action Script, CSS or whatever they love most are kidding themselves.
You might as well consider becoming an Art Buyer or HR executive.
These people each have a valuable role but they support the creative.
They do not compete with you, they compete with the TV Producer down
the hallway. Your job is to have an idea, sell it to the client and
then produce it. You oversee, you protect the idea so that at the very
end exactly what you promised comes out of the process.
You’d also be shocked to find out how digital agencies work. Lots of
long hours, open-floorplan offices, smaller paychecks and a lot more
daily routine. A digital creative is in production every day but
unlike you he rarely leaves his desk and goes to a weeklong shoot in
LA.** You’ll also have to figure out which digital agency you really
want to work for. Parts of the web do that the direct mail guys in the
basement used to do (and still do) in the traditional ad world. Do you
want to build huge product catalogues? Other shops do amazing
conceptual work that you’d love to be involved in. What I am saying is
that there are the hotshop digital agencies as well as the uncool
sweatshop dm-farms that drain the last bit of creativity out of you
just as much as they exist in the traditional world and you need to be
aware of who is who.
I am a traditional creative who in the last five years has tried hard
to get more digital into his book. I am fortunate to be young enough
that using and exploring the web has been second nature to me for as
long as I have been working. I have a decent grasp of what is possible
but I wouldn’t want to program a professional site myself just like I
wouldn’t just pick up a camera to shoot my latest campaign. Doing so
would slow me down and the result would not compare favorably with the
result a specialist could produce.***
I am competing against some digital agencies — those who can approach a client and reputably claim to be able to produce a great (be it insightful, funny, eyecatching and all that) campaign across all media. Goodby is the posterchild. I’m more worried about pitching
against Goodby than against Wieden+Kennedy**** these days. I am fairly
worried about R/GA. They don’t have as big a pedigree in traditional
and TV and sometimes their work is merely good looking as opposed to
really jealousy-inducing smart but every now and then they produce
something so insightful that I wonder what could happen if Bob didn’t
silo his creatives to death.***** Other shops I am thinking about are
Droga5, where ideas clearly lead, The Brooklyn Brothers, Venables Bell
& Partners, Agency Republic and Strawberryfrog Amsterdam. (I am
already competing with 180, 72andsunny and those kinds of shops.)
There are plenty other digital agencies that I do not think I am in
competition with. The Barbarian Group, Odopod, Firstborn and other
similar shops do a lot of beautiful work but I rarely see concepts
other than websites coming from them. Most such shops I have worked
with****** are great at taking a concept and executing it beautifully.
I’m still in awe of Subservient Chicken and I love Comcast Town but
both these campaigns came from traditional agencies if I’m not
mistaken — Crispin******* and Goodby. I am not afraid of pitching a
360 campaign against Firstborn just as they probably aren’t afraid of
pitching a web campaign against Fallon.
I am excited about Goodby because I see who they hire. You can’t get
into that place without a fantastic book that includes digital as well
as any other medium. You get to work on huge accounts with great
freelancers********. There are downsides — Jeff has been known to fire people in elevators if he forgot what they’ve been working on — but imagine how much this concept could rock if the agency had 70 instead of 500 employees. This is the mold the next hotshop boutique is going to be — the place that is going to be what Team One, Ground Zero, Wongdoody, Fallon NYC, Mother and all those places at some point in the previous two decades were. Small, nimble, new, brave and feared.
*I understand it was more mc elligott than fallon.
**unless that’s where the office is.
***Noam Murro, I love you.
****I love you, Dan, but only your Tokyo lab gives great web.
*****every shop has problems. that doesn’t mean the one I called out a
bit is any worse. R/GA is solid.
******yes, I have worked with these shops.
*******Crispin is the new Chiat — large mediocre agency with a bright flash of ingenuity once every decade. Not as bad as some other shops but not great either.
********hello, natzke.
More: “Digital Is Traditional, Traditional Is Digital: Razorfish Goes 360”