Kristina Slade
What are you doing to prepare your agency for the digital revolution?
Digital training is critical for the traditional small-to midsize advertising agencies. The strategic partnerships with digital shops have all gone by the wayside, mainly because digital agencies don’t need them any longer.
To quote Aaron Reitkopf, North American CEO of digital agency Profero, “There’s never been a better time to be in advertising, and there’s never been a worse time.”
Advertising agencies aren’t changing of their own accord, they are being changed. Rising to meet the escalating demands for digital, a lot of agencies are now requiring that almost all of their employees develop digital skills.
Kristina Slade, made the radical decision to leave her job as associate creative director at Omnicom Group’s TBWA \/Chiat\/Day, Los Angeles, to become creative director at San Francisco-based digital agency AKQA. In a recent Ad Age interview, Slade shared her challenges. Here are some of the highlights and challenges she expressed in that interview:
- “… there are better [online] opportunities for brands and consumers.”
- “Jumping in and absorbing all that tech info was the first hurdle.”
- “Digital is a self-curated experience, so if someone didn’t engage with you, it just didn’t happen. It’s about what can a brand give someone.”
- “It was just getting behind the scenes of technology so we could make smarter choices and creative work that was better by leveraging all the potential of different platforms.”
- “… we actually have metrics and can prove what we can get for every dollar spent in digital.”
- “The traditional shop is getting smaller. It’ll look like a hybrid shop.”a
Click on the following link to read Alexandra Bruell’s article, “Creatives out of Their Comfort Zone: Kristina Slade”
Additional articles that may be of interest:
- Top 10 Questions – Is Your Ad Agency Digital Ready?
- 50 of the Best Insights from Ad Age’s First Ever Small Agency Conference
- 16 of the Top Quotes from Fast Company’s The Future of Advertising
- Ad Agencies in “The Great Race” for New Business
