In a move to more closely align digital marketing practices with traditional advertising, Publicis is moving pieces on a board.
Publicis Groupe announced it is aligning Modem Media, a digital firm it acquired as part of its recent $1.6 billion purchase of Digitas, with its Publicis ad agency. The new unit, called Publicis Modem, will create digital marketing services for the Publicis agency. Martin Reidy, former president of Modem Media, will serve as chief executive of Publicis Modem and assume the CEO post at the existing digital marketing agency Publicis Dialogue.
[Source: The Wall Street Journal (paid sub. req.)]
So goes the idea that online marketing will “trump” traditional agencies. In the end, the BDAs will absorb their own online firms and make them part of the whole.
This move advances a reality that could well mean the end of “internet-only” shops. From my own experience, online creatives know the technology far better than they understand the corporate, strategic needs of mass marketing. It’s form vs. function, and function always wins.
In the end. it’s easier for traditional agency creatives to learn the online format than it is for internet creatives to understand the market-driven, ASI-tested, MBA-fueled problem-solving that clients demand.