With the internet attracting a bigger slice of marketing budgets worldwide coupled with the rapid convergence of technology and media, online advertising is shaping up as a great source of technical jobs. But ad agencies are still reluctant to hire what they see as “non-creative” people.
Steve Ball, managing director, The iGroup, says agencies have gone “hell for leather” with their online offerings. Many have purchased web development companies, search marketing consultancies and software development houses to ensure they stay ahead of the trend towards online media. Others are madly outsourcing those functions to specialists. Either way this has created huge demand for employees who are both advertising literate and technically capable.
“There's a need for technical people as there wasn’t before,” says Ball. “But the biggest challenge is that agency management still doesn’t understand that the technical skills are transferable and that they can drive up revenue. It’s a widely-held view that technical people are not ‘creative’, but that’s changing.”
Younger middle agency managers who grew up with technology and are comfortable with all it has to offer are starting to change that view, he says.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), representative of the online industry in Australia, last week released its March quarter online expenditure figures. They show the category has continued to grow steadily reaching $384.5 million in the first quarter of 2008, 30.8% higher than in the same period last year.
The bureau says it’s the sixth consecutive year-on-year increase for online advertising. Media experts are tipping it will continue to grow as advertisers divert funds from traditional media in search of a more measurable investment online. CONTINUE PAGE 2
Ball says while “agencies have gone crazy” trying to beef up their Web 2.0 skills to cope with the growth in demand, they are still excluding people from the IT industry as perspective employees “to their detriment”.
{loadpositionlia}“They shouldn’t exclude these workers. There’s a massive skill shortage in the online space and there’s massive poaching going on (between interactive agencies). It’s got to change.”
Ball says he often tells clients to “get over it” and consider IT people for the job.
“Some clients have listened and have employed people who had been in a corporate technical environment before. They have added enormously to their business,” he says.
A high profile example of cross-skilling albeit in a senior role is Ed Butler, formerly an advisor to advertising agency Leo Burnett and a technology and business consultant with Bearing Point and Andersen Business Consulting.
Butler joined the Microsoft and Nine Network joint-venture ninemsn in the newly-created role of director of technology and development last month. As a portal Ninemsn is the epitome of media and technology convergence, driven by advertising dollars.
“Ed’s mix of technology and people skills along with his previous digital experience and his understanding of advertising gives him the perfect mix of skills to bring to ninemsn,” said Nick Spooner, ninemsn chief operating officer at the time of Butler’s appointment.
Ball says IT candidates can help agencies see their worth by “joining the dots” for them. This includes showing agencies and media publishers how their skills can be used in the online advertising environment and that innovation and creativity are not the exclusive territory of ad types.
To see how interactive advertising people see themselves and the companies they work for, including Google and Yahoo!7, check out their glossy videos on https://au.youtube.com/IABAustralia
