Can Ad Agencies Be Web Designers?

Advertising agencies have been effective in creating best selling campaigns for their customers in the traditional media of print and TV. Now they are moving into the Internet as well.

Purists believe that advertising agencies will have a tough time breaking into the world of the web designers, and it will be some time before they can create web sites which are on the cutting edge of technology. This is because the new technology is something new for them. It takes time to master it, and to learn new ways of working and thinking.

When an entire industry undergoes a revolution like this, many schools of thought will emerge. Some of these ideas are described in this article, but do keep in mind that the writer of this article has nothing against advertising agencies per se!

Many advertising agencies began setting up their digital divisions a few years ago. DDB set up Tribal DDB, Ogilvy & Mather set up Ogilvy & Mather Interactive and so on. Customers welcomed this new division, but many technocrats viewed this step as akin to setting up an outside advertising division within an advertising company.

The main problem was that it was hard to match the temperament of an agency designer with that of a web designer. Most traditional web designers felt that agency designers worked with a different canvas and could rarely understand how a web site really works.

This is one of the major sore points between advertising agencies and web designers. The agency designer on the other hand may look down on the web designer, who has no clue about branding and creating an online brand and is usually thinking only about technology. It is difficult to prove either one wrong. The project is what matters in the end.

Some advertising agencies have been able to cross the digital divide not by setting up another division but by cross pollination of ideas. A web designer has been taken through the steps of branding. while a brand manager underwent a crash course on the nuances of web site design. This has helped both groups perform better together. A few advertising agencies have produced some excellent web sites.

So how important it is for web site designers to understand the objective of branding and brand management when they are designing a web site for a genuine company? Advertising professionals understand that it is very important, because their customers do not care about the technology used on the web site. Their only interest is in how well the web site they have just bought delivers the content they want their customers to see.

Creating a strong brand and using the Internet as a cost effective channel to do so, and to promote a service or a product, is more critical for users than fussing over the latest technology. Customers want to see their profits rise because of their web site. How that site was built does not concern them.

Technology - if employed correctly - can provide some excellent branding opportunities for companies. A good example is Flash. Flash has revolutionized the delivery of audio visual content on the Internet. Flash has made it possible to create some of the most interesting web sites for the world’s leading brands such as Coca Cola, RBK and Adidas.