You're crystal ball needs to check the stars. While the "good" agencies must adapt and embrace the new marketing model (beyond the ad), the old titans will survive to see another day. Why? It harkens back to the dot com bubble.

In the dot com craze, of which I was a part, everyone was talking about the death of TV, radio, and print right along with the death of the traditional agency. Guess what? I still watch TV, I still listen to the radio (gasp!) and I still read my daily newspaper & favorite mags in print. Granted, not as much as I used to but I still do. I'm like most of America.

Only because I went through the dot com era am I able to see that the Internet and other new media are not grim reapers but an evolution of a model that has been around for 60+ years. The new tools that we all have at our disposal will steal share from the traditional vehicles, but won't replace them until we are old & gray. It's 7 - 10 years after the Internet was supposed to take over the ad world, and while it's influence in undeniable, it's still got a long way to go. I mean the Yahoo's of the world are still worrying about generating enough advertising revenue to compete!

There's also the endless reserve of cheap clients who don't and won't place value on true brand architecture (which very few know how to do since demographics and psychographics have replaced face-to-face interaction) and prefer production houses, er traditional agencies. Need MRI data? Easy. Need to know why people think or live like the MRI data shows? Not so easy for a traditional shop. But lots of clients are satisfied with the array of stats that get shoved at them and that causes agencies to coast instead of improving the way they think about consumers.

Don't even get me started on traditional shops that talk the talk but will never walk the walk, they are a plague to all of us in the industry and sadly are the norm. And as much as I wish they would all implode, the sad truth of the matter is that they will continue to exist in bigger numbers than any of us would like. They may have smaller and smaller clients, but the trend of "back to the mom & pop shop" can't be counted out.

The old agencies won't die. They'll just lie around and stink up the joint. Just ask the stars.

Lori - very good points. You are right in that their are plenty of companies that will lag far behind the innovation adoption curve, and those traditional agencies to serve them. But the marketing leaders like Nike, P&G, and Coke will set the bar for whats next - and they are workingn with new model agencies like Anomaly, Strawberry Frog, and Naked who are breaking new ground.

You know what's fun? Look at an issue of Ad Age or Ad Age's Creativity from 8 years ago--you'll see TONS of articles hyping all sorts of things, from agencies to personalities to trends. Few of them ever hold up. That's nothing new, of course. Its such a function of journalism to ramble aimlessly about the future with much authority and little foundation.

The big agencies probably won't dissolve--they should, but the fact that they've survived this long makes me wonder if they're akin to roaches. Never truly evolving, but evolving enough to survive repeated attempts to kill them (you know, how Raid constantly has to improve its formula).

When I was younger and more naive, I used to think that stupid behavior would have to submit to quantitative measures like turning a profit and helping clients make more money. I find this often NOT to be the case. One of the worst things about the ad world is the emphasis on building a bigger and bigger ego rather than, y'know, actually doing something useful and productive. The awards shows aren't all bad, but they aren't indicative of much.

Earlier this week I met with a potential client in Pittsburgh, a chain of pretty cool restaurants with a myriad of wing flavors and tons of motor sports decor (much of it museum quality). They balked when we said that they're brand should stem from racing and biking and all that. Instead, they insisted that their driving force was "eatertainment" and they should try to get vegetarians to visit them because "that's one audience we don't have yet."

At that moment, I knew why we existed. To help clients realize that anyone with a credit card is not necessarily a target. "Brand" is a lot of hot air in many ways, but to the extent that it helps a business focus on a relevant audience, its good. I think of a brand as a magnet.

Personally, I dream of a world with less advertising and less marketing in general. It's not that "less is more," its that "just enough is more." One of the unfortunate byproducts of all the non-traditional hype (much of which IS warranted) is that agencies produce tons and tons of excess junk.

Brad- GREAT commnents! Lori pointed out the indisolluble nature of my predition and she is right. You my friend are also correct in that the old school will adapt enought to survive.

I'm curious who the the chain was in Pittsburgh. I spend the first three years of my career with May Company's Kaufmann's division which was based there. I lived in Pittsburgh for about 2 years before heading to St. Louis when they moved me to the corporate headquarters for May.

You are 100% correct in your statement of ad agencies greatest value and the importance of brand.