SoDA: The New Junior Mafia
March 12, 2008
Something did happen at SXSW worth taking note of. Five agencies have gotten together to form yet another body of advertising folk called the Society Of (Super) Digital Agencies. Founding member agencies include AgencyNet, Big Spaceship, Blitz Agency, Domani Studios, Exopolis, Firstborn Multimedia, Grupo W, iChameleon Group, IQ Interactive,Juxt Interactive, Lightmaker, Mind Comet, Odopod, Schematic, Struck Design, WDDG, WhittmanHart and 360i. Membership is exclusive, invite-only folks.
According to Creativity, the idea is to “bring about best practices in a rapidly evolving marketing landscape. The group, which currently has a membership of 18 digital agencies, aims to leverage its members’ industry experience to share knowledge on how best to do business on digital projects with brand clients, agency clients and competitors, while also focusing on ethics and guidelines.”
In addition to trying to set guideline, the SoDA team want to also determine criteria about presenting work to interactive awards shows. So, um… riddle us this: why should anyone listen to these dudes? Just because you get together and form a club with some friends don’t mean shit. Eighteen shops, with a nice roster of work beneath them, is a nice start, but the need much bigger, badder players to get on board if they’re going to make a real difference. We wish them luck.
March 12, 2008 at 6:56 pm
how can this be a list of ’super’ digital agencies when the only one worth noting listed is WDDG and top top dogs like R/GA are missing?
March 12, 2008 at 7:07 pm
yeah, really…schematic is the only hot shit agency here (whitman hart still exists?). and someone will need to explain why on earth would any of these people want to share actual useful info on how to best serve clients with their ocmpetitors??
March 12, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Looks like a list of digital production shops to me.
March 12, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Yeah, awesome, what about places like Carat, OMD, MindShareINTERACTION, MediaVest, etc. They’re all digital too. Don’t leave out the people who control all the money…
March 12, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Hey, dont be haters. why hate? seems like these guys are behind a lot of the best shit out there, am i wrong?
March 13, 2008 at 12:56 am
Interesting comments…but from someone who has a significant amount of experience in the interactive space, these agencies have more creative talent than most of the larger shops. True, R/GA and others have some big name clients, but look at the work from agencies such as Big Spaceship (hbovoyeur.com), IQ Interactive (whiteboard.ups.com), and Juxt (http://clients.juxtinteractive.com/direcTV/titanium/rc5/titanium.html)
March 13, 2008 at 3:40 am
digital production shop wank.
March 13, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Why so much love for the ADs?? What about CWs..?
March 13, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Very true, 90% of those agencies are production shops.
March 13, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Solely digital agencies are a dying breed…ban together all you want but that won’t stop where all of this is heading.
With technology and distribution increasingly having a more critical role in creative development, clients aren’t going to be so willing to split up digital as a special/separate offering.
And those of us in the digital space willing to embrace this new hybrid creative approach will definitely make out. Traditional folks that don’t get or care about technology will continue to make themselves obsolete (and I’m totally looking forward to it).
March 13, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Difficult for production shops to produce the kind of thinking and strategy that goes into most of this work.
March 13, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Sure is and that’s why digital strategists will always have job security – regardless of agency model
March 13, 2008 at 11:45 pm
@peabody: I see two shops on that list that do great work. I see none on that list that aren’t hired by agencies and fed ideas and opportunities. Big Spaceship is awesome, but they did the HBO voyeur wrapper. They didn’t come up with the idea, nor did they shoot the video. BBDO did.