Old School Ad men and new media...

I was reading through a friend of mines blog and he made a really valid point, more applicable to our region than his (London). Most agency’s are led by what some may dub the traditional ad men, the older generation. These are the guys who might have their name behind the receptionist neatly adjacent to some other dead blokes. These are the guys that understand why the line was divided between the A&L and B&L. These are the guys that use outdated jargon like USP and TVC. They are the old school ad men.

They are the brilliant men of middle and top management that started and now head all large networks in the region, true industry pioneers. But, despite the innumerable stacks of respect I have for them truth be told, they just don’t get new media. Haven’t a clue about anything mildly related to digital, blogs SMS, virals and anything that is not printed or not on TV.

So I wondering, in the next ten years digital will become arguably one of the most important mediums. As the next generation of middle and upper management, are we preparing ourselves for the change in times? Can most account executives articulate the basics on the depth of online branding? Can the director utter more than “yeah we should do some online” to the question, “what about the web?” If the management fountain of wisdom hasn’t a clue, where oh where do we drink to survive and better yet prepare for a tech frenzied future? Anyone who’s serious about this industry best have Amazon.com on their web Favorites.
Cue training montage...