Hasta La Creative!

Not to get too philosophical, but what is an ad agency these days? I ask because the 4A’s — the American Association of Advertising Agencies — is said to be contemplating adding consultancies like Accenture and Deloitte Digital into its ranks.

Of course, there’s a logical argument to why they should be members: consultancies are getting a lot of business that formerly went to ad agencies. Marketers will say this is thanks to the agencies themselves, who abused trust by padding their profits at their clients’ expenses, but also to the abstruse nature of programmatic advertising.

It all started years ago, when clients’ procurement departments began squeezing lower and lower costs from agencies. In turn, agencies had to either hire talent that wouldn’t be up to the task of solving some of programmatic’s greatest challenges, or create alternate revenue streams, whether or not marketers would approve of how these streams were created.

Continue reading at AdAge.com