Are digital agencies dead?

The Wall Street Journal recently suggested that the era of digital agencies may be over. It’s not that digital services are no longer required, but the label for agencies may no longer make sense.

In this episode, Chip and Gini talk about the need for agencies to find a sustainable focus and be cautious of riding the wave of the latest type of “hot” agency — including digital, social media, cannabis, crypto, and many others that have come and gone.

As digital services become table stakes for most agencies, it is more important than ever when positioning your business to focus on the results that clients are seeking rather than the tactics being employed.

Key takeaways

* Gini Dietrich: “Hooking onto a trend that’s available at the time and changing your messaging and your brand and your vision to match that is short sighted.”

* Chip Griffin: “Nobody is an expert because of the tagline for their agency. Calling yourself a digital agency does not an expert make you.”

* Gini Dietrich: “It’s consistency that matters. So be consistent, understand who your agency is, what it stands for, what your vision is.”

* Chip Griffin: “If I ask 20 people what a digital agency is, I’ll probably get 20 different answers.”

Resources

* Wall Street Journal: Will 2024 Mark the End of the ‘Digital Agency’?

* Elf: World’s Best Cup of Coffee

Related

* Should AI upend your agency business model today?

View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: Gini, the digital agency is dead. It’s yet another thing that’s dead. Because we just love in this world that we’re in to just have posts and articles and episode titles that something is dead.

Gini Dietrich: So why not? Yes, true.

Chip Griffin: So it really does amaze me how many times people are like, you know, Twitter is dead. Social media is dead. The press release is dead.

Gini Dietrich: PR is dead. Everything is dead. You’re all dead.

Chip Griffin: If I didn’t know, people in our world, they just seem to like writing obituaries for different things in business. That’s it.

That’s the end. You know, and, and most of them just don’t come true, you know, I mean, radio and TV are still not dead, still not dead. People still listen to the radio. They still watch over the air TV. They do. Yes, indeed. But this episode is inspired by an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal over the holiday break, and it was, will 2024 mark the end of the digital agency?

And so the whole thrust of the article basically is that calling yourself a digital agency no longer wor...