Is the sea-change

in online creative gaining sufficient attention internally?

Absolutely. After the interactive agency world was forced to get over itself, those shops left standing had learned a valuable lesson: this space was never about technology, it was always about the user.

“Application intoxication” had long worn off; strategy, psychographics, trending, analytics, ROI, and long-term accountability -- basically, the factors that have always mattered to successful communicators and their audiences -- peeked back through the dot-bomb ashes.

Today, technology pretty much allows an agency to build anything but a “Save the World” button. (And we’re working on it.) Rich media, broadband access, and browser advancements have joined forces to level both the agency playing field and the creative work these firms generate. Almost every agency has its tech wizards; the late-90s paved the way for that. So technology, as critical as it is to everything we do, has become the cost of entry. Compare that to 2002. Indeed, the messaging wizards are now center-stage.

Translation: shops realize that hitting their ever-accelerating-moving targets will be mandatory -- and recognizing and reliably acting on emerging trends is growing into the agency breadwinner.