Did Madison Avenue Create its Own Worst Enemy?

Before search as we know it, internet search engines seek help from Madison Avenue to find more users and advertisers. That's right, early search engines like Excite, Lycos and Yahoo! turned to big traditional ad agencies to find users.Over a decade and one huge role reversal later, users rely on search engines to find everything else.

And the most interesting turn of events is that digital agencies are poised to take the lead for major ad accounts away from the big boys on Madison Avenue. Brian Cross notes in his recent post Digital Agencies Are Taking the Lead that digital agencies, with a slight improvement in their overall strategy, are poised to overtake traditional agencies. He says about larger ad agencies:

"The hill is steep for them.  They are built into those old structures, and it's hard to break out of those.  These structures run deep, and no CEO blog and PR pitch that the agency is getting turned on to Digital is going to be the way to compete.  Something needs to fundamentally change."

Just last year - well after digital hit it big in the advertising world - ad executives at traditional agencies are scrambling, denying its coming, or trying to keep up in digital realm. 

"The digital age is bringing about fundamental changes in the way in which both the media industries and advertising agencies operate. The traditional broadcast and print media are having to reinvent their finance models in order to compensate for declining advertising revenues as advertisers chase audiences across the plethora of media platforms that are now available."

- Digital Age Transforming the Way Advertising Agencies Operate.

Not only that, but soon even traditional ad mediums will have the capability to be digital with the growing acceptance of HD Radio, Sattalinte or fiberoptic TV, even broadcast TV will be all digital in early 2009. It's not out of the question to think that all agencies will be digital agencies in the next few years.

IMO, that's not a bad thing for three main reasons:

1. Users have more control over what advertising they are exposed to.
2. Advertisers can plan and account for their marketing dollars more responsibly.
3. Targeting ads and marketing will be much more focused, so the ads we are exposed to will hopefully be much more relevant.

What is your IMO?