ABSTRACT
By the early 2000s, it was clear that advertising and the advertising industry were no longer what they used to be. Not surprisingly, advertising agencies were eager to present their digital credentials to clients. In the US, the advertising industry played an important role in expanding the Dotcom bubble. Although the advertising agencies managed to make it through the early days of the digital age, they had suffered enormous losses in the process: they had lost money; they had lost status; they had lost power. For the advertising industry, the key issue was client spending —both the amount and the media. As marketers displayed more serious interest in going online, the creative and media agencies similarly moved to improve their capacity to service their clients’ digital needs. The agencies’ ambivalence towards digital media was reflected in their own websites.
