CASBAA: Competence gap continues to stifle digital evolution

Glock called for a concerted effort on the part of advertisers and agencies to evolve the development of advertising for the digital space. He claimed that the basic principles behind effective advertising – solid consumer insight and insight-driven, engaging content had not changed, adding that the ’30-second ad’ would continue to be an important part of an advertiser’s messaging. But he added that “the way people experience it will be different”.

Fellow panelist Richard Dunmall, regional general manager of Microsoft Advertising agreed, stating that the future lay in “the ability to tell a story across different devices”. Dunmall claimed that the digital versus non-digital debate was “meaningless”. Digital media would come to be bought and sold in the same way as TV, he said.

“TV is about to enter a new golden era,” enthused Anthony Fitzgerald, chief executive of the Multi Channel Network. “The experience TV can offer has never been better. Online advertising complements that of TV very well, and we believe that both are going to show good growth in the years to come.”

However, Dunmall noted that there remained a “huge disconnect” between consumer activity and allocation of advertising dollars, largely due to what he described as a level of vested interests among agencies.

In order to close the gap, he said digital practitioners needed to become less “self-indulgent”, lose their “obsession with click-based search” and speak in a language more easily understandable by advertisers.

For his part, Glock admitted that there was a “digital competence gap” among advertisers as well as many agencies. “The speed of change could be faster for some advertisers. But unless we overcome the [competence gap], things will not change.”