Recession may open doors for digital marketing
Oct 26 2008 By Matthew Clugston
Looking at the future and trying to assess the impact of this dreaded downturn, I can’t help but see opportunities and a positive outlook as the shift towards digital marketing continues.
As the effect of marketing budget cuts trickle down throughout the creative industries, we’ll no doubt see many nervous marketing and brand managers focusing more on ROI and hoping to stretch their pots of cash as far as possible.
They will be looking for accountable and targetable approaches to their advertising, serviced by more efficient suppliers.
This is great news for agencies working in digital; we should see the move from traditional formats to online continue for the foreseeable future – New Media Age’s Top 100 list recently reported a 14 per cent growth in earnings at a time when all other advertising channels are in decline.
So work should continue to move towards digital agencies but what effect will a slowdown have on the quality of creative output?
The jury’s still out, perhaps anxious clients will revert to straight, accountable banner ads at the expense of the extravagant brand building online “experiences”.
Alternatively, we might see an increasing need for outstanding creative to help brands take advantage of the potentially successful viral and social network channels.
I’ve watched another significant trend with interest, that is the spate of senior strategic and creative talent leaving the large ad networks to set up shop on their own. There are three common themes to these new agencies:
* Bold claims of “doing things differently”;
* Quickly followed by a succession of high profile account wins, just to prove their point;
* Simultaneously running with a low headcount and relying on creative and technical partner companies
So, budgets are being cut and brands need digital expertise and creative talent. I see this new breed of ad agencies slaying a few more giants as their low overheads and agility to work with the hottest specialists in their fields will make them more and more appealing.
At Birmingham’s Plus Design Festival, Peter Saville shared some pearls of wisdom.
He told me: “you’re only as good as a client lets you be”, ok, at the time I saw a little designer arrogance in this but I now realise how pertinent his point was.
As brands become more confident in the digital arena and confident with the new agency model, we’ll see them bucking the large ad networks to work directly with smaller, agile, creative agencies to come out with some great work.
As long as a little of that comes my way then I’m happy and the great thing is this change for the better maybe because of, not in spite of the economic slowdown.
* Matthew Clugston is creative director at Clusta.
