"Getting it" and "Not Getting It"

Random thoughts.  You've heard the saw: some agencies "get it", some "don't get it". 

Seems to boil down generally to this:

• "digital" shops tell you "traditional" shops don't get (meaning, of course, 'understand' or 'do well') "digital", "social media", "viral marketing", or a host of specific functionalities - e.g., SEM, SEO, mobile development, etc., etc., etc.
• "traditional" shops tell you "digital" shops don't "get" "branding", "craft", "storytelling", or "advertising".

Behind those two positions are a few things, including:

• creative control, as in, "who's that stupid traditional agency to judge the unparraleled brilliance of my interactive idea when they don't know s--- about interactive or the specific nuances of the digital ecosphere?"; or, "who the hell are those untalented f-ers at the digital shop without a conceptual bone in their bodies to tell me about engaging brand stories when the best they can muster is a s--- tech app 'because its cool or because they can', rather than 'because its spot on with brand strategy?"
• client relationships (and with it, fees).  Digital shops often look to go straight to the client because they don't believe traditional folks they occasionally have to partner with understand their ideas well enough to represesent them effectively to the client, and traditional folks see digital folks talking about their ideas in isolation from the bigger picture - the old "if the only tool you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" problem
• The belief at many shops that "interactive is still an unproven medium being heavily pushed by the uninformed out of fear or because the market is telling them they have to", or that "interactive is the fundamental game changer that renders all previous communication prosaic and dated".

The problem?  Everyone is right.

More later.

I <3 NY.

Comments

[Heather Dougherty]

Well said BOTH of you. I have the good fortune of working in a forward-thinking interactive group at a traditional agency, so it's easier to foster the collaboration this conundrum seems to be striving for.

Perhaps Steve Gehlen (ISF, IPF, Internet Stratetgy Summit, Inverge, cre8camp, cre8con) should put together a conference to help bring the equation above to life.

[::od]

traditional + digital - ego = magic