Can Agencies Deliver Online?
There is so much positive news about growth in the advertising spending (total US ad spending is forecast to grow 6.9% in 2004 per Bob Coen of Universal McCann) , it would be easy for traditional ad agencies to enjoy the increased demand and keep pumping out more of what they do best: television and print ads. But, even with the healthy increase in demand for ads in all media, advertising agencies should be prepared for significant changes in the product mix that they provide. Because, while companies are spending more to promote their brands in all media, they are increasingly using their Web sites as an integral part of their overall marketing campaigns. Results of the Digital Marketing Survey, sponsored by BtoB, the CMO Council and USA Today, showed that 78% of the global marketers and agencies that responded said they planned to increase their digital marketing budget in 2004. Furthermore, the respondents were not satisfied with their current online marketing efforts. Ad agencies need to improve their ability to integrate offline campaigns with Web advertising, and perhaps most important, with a Web site marketing plan that is designed to provide �highly personalized interaction, better customer profiling and analytics to determine campaign effectiveness�. This is what iProspect calls �inquiry marketing�. John Battelle prefers to call it �intent� marketing. No matter what you call it, ad agencies better figure out how to deliver it to their clients.