ABSTRACT
Advertising agencies were simply unwilling to move on from the stability of the past and to embrace the uncertain future. The rapid evolution of the digital landscape post-2006 had meant that advertising agencies and the advertising industry more generally would remain in an age of ongoing uncertainty, particularly in the face of new giants such as Google and Facebook. Since the early 1990s, marketers had been developing a more sophisticated understanding of advertising and were no longer content to leave it to their agency to handle. Accountability had become marketers’ new mantra as they sought to maximise the returns on their advertising expenditure. While the fragmentation of the media had worked to the advantage of media agencies, Google’s dominance, along with its efficient and adaptable advertising program Adwords, wrested power away from the media agencies. Advertising agencies could also argue that their actions were in fact reflections of their clients’ needs, or lack thereof.
