PARTICIPANTS:
HASHEM BAJWA - Digital Planning Director, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
JASON ZADA - ECD/Founder, EVB
BENJAMIN PALMER - CEO, The Barbarian Group
LARS BASTHOLM - ECD, AKQA, New York
DAVID ROSENBERG - Director of Emerging Media, JWT, New York

In the ever-changing new media universe, point-and-click "interactivity" and intrusive mobile ad strategies are no longer au courant. Advertisers are turning to their agency and production partners for new approaches, designed to take the big idea across myriad touchpoints. We asked five smart folks from both digital shops and larger, more "trad" agencies to weigh in on the trends and tech that brands can and should effectively employ in the 21st century, and guess what - it ain't all about Facebook.

Boards: We hear all the time about agencies and production companies becoming more media-agnostic. Are more and more clients following that line of thinking as well?

Benjamin:I think the clients at this point in time are probably ahead of most of the agencies in terms of wanting something new and that is the best idea regardless of the media. The holdout is the old-school agency business model because they make all their money off of making TV ads... I don't think the clients are nearly as scared as the agency side anymore.

Jason: I'd agree. We definitely preach being media-agnostic and leading with the big idea and then figuring out where that idea should live after that. But when you look at a lot of the larger agencies, they're still divided up by media. It doesn't match what a lot of clients are wanting these days - one big idea that engages people.

David: The compartmentalizing of media as departments does prevent holistic thinking, but I think agencies are starting to wipe away those walls. Here, we don't have digital creatives or a digital department anymore. But with clients, you get some that are familiar with the media they've grown up with, from ratings points or what have you, and may not be comfortable in working in a world of video views. Do they want a central idea? Yes. But the question is will muscle memory prevent them from acquiring that big idea?

Lars: We did a round-up of 2007 and looked at all the stuff that's been created across our network. There's everything from digital out-of-home to virals to websites - we even did radio for a client. So we're asking ourselves, are we a digital agency? The struggle becomes to define the new type of agency that's not "either/or".

David: I think the other part to it that isn't really discussed enough is partnerships. In order to be holistic in the media sense you have to be collaborative and understand who can do the best job.

Lars: That's how ad agencies have traditionally worked - going out to find the best partners to produce or shoot something. So it's about having a good rolodex with specialists in it. But in the digital sector we've become used to doing everything ourselves.

Hashem: I think a lot of the clients we end up dealing with get locked into discussions about media. Maybe they don't want a complicated story - maybe theirs is a simpler story that can be told in 30 seconds. We too often get caught up in the media debates about which ones are better. I think that's part of the problems the clients have and agencies internalize that.

Boards: Is it even safe to say that there is still a "driver" in the assorted media?

Benjamin: We've done a lot of really successful campaigns that use little or no media [buys]. Or if they did use media it was just to generate awareness that we'd made something that we thought people might like. That's a different proposition than starting with a television ad that has a message, and hoping that people like that message enough to continue the conversation.

Lars: Looking at something like the Super Bowl, what would be interesting to see would be an advertiser taking the traditional million dollars to make a TV commercial and another two million to place it in the Super Bowl - and then take the same money and give it to an agency and say, "We want you to create engagement points for our consumers", and then measure what has the most impact afterwards. But no one has the guts to do that yet.

Boards: As for creating something of value to the consumer - is this easier to explore with emerging media?

David: The central idea - the creative - has to be great. You want to create an experience that's rewarding for people but it can't be self-serving. You have to give people something they'll deem valuable and the best thing you can hope for is they'll share it with people they know.

Lars: We talk about the big idea as if it's expressed in one television commercial and/or one website. What if we were talking about the big strategy instead? Instead of having those macro-touchpoints you have micro-touchpoints?

Hashem: That's right. Often times, it's like; "Here's the big idea; I want to see it everywhere." Maybe it doesn't have to be spread like peanut butter. Maybe the 'big idea' is a small idea that resonates with people.

Benjamin: We've run into a lot of interesting discussions over the years, such as if a website is successful, there's actually no real reason to take it down even when the campaign's over. In terms of building long-term value there's a lot about interactivity and the Internet, and useful forms of advertising that gain value the longer that they're around. That's one of the most complicated shifts that's happening now in terms of branding and interactive marketing, a shift towards semi-permanence or permanence.

David: That's a very important point - in some of these cases there are people on the other end who not only invested at the time when you've launched, but have maintained their relationships with other people through their experience. To turn it off could be damaging to the brand. You've got people on the other end of this thing - it's not one-dimensional. To cut them off from each other would be a mistake.