Your comments ring so true. Only the other week I had a search agency – one of the big ones in Sydney, calling me and trying to make me feel like I dont understand search so I would use his agency. He was so pushy that I hung up on him twice!

I agree with you that there are definitely some good ones out there you just need to search. I do however feel sorry for clients out there who are new to the industry and dont know how to sort the good from the bad.

Thanks very much for popping past and hope to see you on my blog again soon.

Cheers

Teresa

I’m frustrated by agencies who treat their clients like dummies. They use unnecessary jargon, come up with excuses for not being able to do something that they don’t understand and talk down to anyone not in the digital arena. Again, let me stress this isn’t all of them. It’s not until I let them know that I’ve actually been there and done it that I sometimes get to have a useful conversation. Your Levi’s anecdote is a great example. I really liked the idea behind this campaign, but looking at the numbers I’m not surprised they couldn’t prove ROI. They didn’t set out to achieve it and therefore weren’t set up to measure it, carried away with the great creative idea.

Clients need to challenge and agencies need to challenge themselves. There’s a lot of opportunity to stand out from the crowd…

Thank you very much for all making the effort to comment on this article.

I think it is great to have some agency commentary on the state of the industry as I of course see it from a client perspective.

James I definitely agree with you on the side of comfort. Client side there needs to be far more leadership to drive organisations towards digital, examples such as insurers building a business case for email reinforces the market realities. However I also think the lack of quality industry education is also contributing to the problem.

Keep pushing the digital envelope guys and hope to see you on my blog again soon!

Cheers

Teresa

It seems that the standard digital strategy offered by large (and historically traditional) agencies involves a campaign site, facebook page and twitter stream – an in ability to monitor this and a massive lack of relevant metric feedback. Even more so, no learnings are taken from one project to the next.

It seems to me, that you were spot on with your comment in a previous post about the lack of qualified digital experts.

As a professional, I pride myself on my ability to place strategy at the forefront of my digital decisions – these strategies are grounded in real theories. While these theories are derived from the past (and traditional channels) they still hold water. For example – and this is my advice to digital agencies – show me the value, and I will reward you with a contract. And no, I am not just talking about the bottom line, show me how you will generate brand loyalty as well, dare i mention advocacy?

Can you believe the number of proposals for digital that fail to show how they will return value?

Sorry for the rant – you have raised a wonderful point that it seems I and others are currently sharing your frustration with….

I will value your posts even more highly and read with greater interest!

In my day-to-day role, I’m constantly exposed to the conservative mindset most Australian businesses take towards digital media. Forget mobile and social media, I’m talking the basics. How many of Australia’s top retailers actually provide ecommerce platforms to buy products online? Heck… I heard a story recently about how one of Australia’s largest insurers was building a business case for email marketing… in 2009! Are you kidding me?!?!

In reality, I’m sure it’s a combination of both. Clients who are more comfortable sticking with what they know (even if it doesn’t work), and agencies that often lack the specific skills and experience to lead them down the digital highway.

We are a small digital strategy agency formed by professionals who have been in the industry for many years and have come from large organizations such as realestate.com.au, seek and looksmart. We have seen an increase in client spending over the last few months and a demand for their brand to get the right visibility online. This has shown us the industry is waking up to the importance of credibility across the web. As a result the expectation of good quality work is increasing as well. However knowledge and understanding is still far and few between, so I agree……. there is still a long road ahead!

I agree that the state of our digital marketing industry when it comes to social networking and in particular metrics and transparency is shocking – bar a few exceptions. It actually also has to do with educating the advertisers – if they don’t know that better metrics are available, they will not ask for such a service and be prepared to pay for it.