Design + The Digital Agency

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I must have "ad guy" firmly etched in the brain.  The latest reminder comes in the form of a BusinessWeek article that Diego recently pointed out.  This part in particular jumped out at me:

"We're clearly at an inflection point. I'm not even a traditional ad-guy and I've been asked to write this, so what does that say? We're all firmly in this together—marketers, designers, clients, agencies, researchers, ethnographers, art directors and writers, all being sniped at, out-thought, and remixed by consumers younger than our own kids. Hard as it is to say, in most cases, they're as good, if not better, at this stuff than we are. Now, together, we must figure out where to go from here."

This made me think of a presentation I gave when first joining Digitas (I've since updated with some of my visuals).   It's a high-level overview of the role of design (speaking very broadly here) in the context of the digital agency.  So back to the "ad guy" theme...this leaves me with several questions:

1. What does the future ad guy/gal look like?
2. Is he/she a designer of some shape, form or kind?
3. Will the future of advertising even remotely resemble the current status quo?
4. Will we still call it advertising?

Of course all thoughts expressed will help fuel future posts.  My, that writers block I briefly suffered from didn't last very long...  ;)

Comments

[Charlie]

Clearly the future "ad guy" needs to understand both the technology and the user... and in a way that really only comes from being a heavy technology user themselves. You can't really explain MySpace to someone who doesn't use it, or pitch a blogger unless you blog yourself...you'll always just come off like an outsider. I think you'll see a lot more agencies hire young people who can fulfill this kind of job:

http://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com/2006/12/job_social_medi.html

PS... if you know anyone... :)