It's time to press reset as we all go post-digital

9 July 2009 | By Mark Cridge

That’s it. It’s all over. Done and dusted. If ever anyone was still in doubt, we have officially moved into a post-digital world. No self-respecting cyber-man or woman need worry again that their creed will be taken seriously; digital has gone mainstream and, in doing so, has vanished into the ether.

According to Cyber Jury President Lars Bastholm in Cannes this year, a mere 12 of the 83 Cyber Lions awarded were produced by agencies that describe themselves as purely digital. The vast majority came from a hodge-podge of direct, digital, traditional, PR, design, technology and advertising, delivered through a variety of agency models and organisations.

By entering the mainstream, digital is no longer the exclusive domain of interactive specialists. What it certainly hasn’t done, though, is put the traditional ad agencies back on top - things are much more interesting than that. We’re slap bang in the middle of a great period of consolidation, at the very same time as everything is becoming ever more fragmented.

I got a taste for where things might be heading by judging the Titanium and Integrated Lions at Cannes. It was a fascinating process to be able to spend a week just talking about the work with such a distinguished panel of judges. We got down to a selection that represented a culmination of ten years of change and a reaction to media fragmentation, greater consumer control and involvement.

At the top of the pile was the Obama campaign, which quietly dominated the judging discussions and, to no one’s great surprise, scooped both the Titanium and Integrated Grand Prix. A campaign of this scale was clearly going to stoke debate: how do you separate the idea from the man? What if he hadn’t won? What if this had been for McCain? What we chose to recognise was the organising idea itself and the level of integration that resulted. The Obama campaign drew the outlines and left space for others to colour in on an unprecedented scale. We can learn from the techniques the curators used to guide it.

Whenever something remarkable began to take shape at whatever level, traditional resources could be used to draw attention to the most exciting and interesting activity, amplifying and expanding the reach of the overall campaign, reinforcing favoured themes, creating an evolving and diverse but on-message movement. The desire to create a movement became a theme for all of the Titanium and Integrated work. Each blessed with clarity of thought and excellence in execution across all bought, owned and earned media.

During the festival, Steve Ballmer of Microsoft described this recession as a reset. For Cannes, this was a chance to get back to education, discussion and debate (with a modicum of debauchery, of course). For me, it marked a welcome redrawing of the playing field for agencies. May the best ideas win.

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