PR Blogger com

Nice feature in this week’s MarketingWeek regarding how digital marketing agencies are beginning to take an increasing share of the marketing budget. It goes on to describe how these digi agencies will become more prominant to a point where the traditional (and very large) marketing agencies will soon become “under serious threat” and “are in a crisis together” and gives a recent eBay pitch won by a digital-focused agency as an example:

“The continuing battle for supremacy between established advertising agencies and the new breed of digital upstarts rose to the surface last week when online auction site eBay appointed self-professed “integrated agency” Albion to handle its advertising highlights. In this case, eBay rejected the overtures of shops famed for their television ads such as Mother and WCRS in favour of an agency that promises to use the internet as lead medium.”

There is an arguement for and against from commenters who some say that digital specialists, although with the technical knowhow, don’t have the creative skills of the larger agencies. The last paragraph ends in quite a controversial one:

“…the online threat and the recruitment crisis facing multinationals is rewriting the rules of the advertising industry. In ten years’ time, the business models of the UK’s top shops are likely to be radically different from today. Many agencies will not survive in their present form.”

So, if this is the way the marketing world is turning to does it reflect that of the PR world too? Probably not that harsh but I get their point.