By KATERYNA TOPOL

Let’s talk about the advertising agency model.

We all know that the old, traditional system is flawed – and that those who strive for a better one rebuilt their departments in accordance by joining the digital and traditional portions of their agencies into one. And that makes complete sense.

But it’s not enough.

A light turned on in my head during this year’s Mesh conference and thoughts started spiraling out of control.

There is another flaw.

And it’s in the social media department.

Yes, having a social media department is essential to any company that exists in the digital space. But social media has a much bigger role in the advertising world.

At present, most agencies maintain their social media department and their creative department as separate entities. The social media department keeps an eye out on social media updates, rules and strategies; the creative department concentrates on ideation and execution.

Now think about today’s advertising.

Really think about the scope of a campaign.

Some ideas do start at the social level, but many more are primarily content-driven. As such, the social portions of these campaigns are often actually developed by the creative department – with the social media team only getting involved later in the process as advisors.

This creates a gap of knowledge.

We invest into social media education for people who are not in charge of building the social campaigns.

The creative team needs to not only be familiar, but also educated on the current issues – and then updated on the social media and content marketing world in order to produce more relevant and effective campaigns.

Technology is often at the root of the idea.

And not knowing how to drive it may stand on the way of an even better one.

The social aspects need to be baked into the concept from the very beginning by the people who shared the donuts and the beers during the very first brainstorm – not when the idea is nearly complete.

I will not go as far as to say that the social media and creative departments need to be joined together inside of every agency. But perhaps it is time that we start investigating, and investing in, 2.0 Creatives.

Share:

• Tags
• ·
• 2.0 Creatives
• ·
• advertising agency model
• ·
• Advertising Week
• ·
• Advertising Week Blog
• ·
• Advertising Week Social Club
• ·
• AWSC
• ·
• AWSC Advice + Wisdom
• ·
• AWSC Advice Column
• ·
• kateryna topol
• ·
• Mesh
• ·
• Mesh conference
• ·
• new agency systems
• ·
• Social Media
• ·
• social media education
• ·
• social media integration
• ·
• traditional agency systems