The Old Intergration Conundrum

Integration, integration, integration... You've heard the mantra over and over from hundreds of agencies. The pontifications about media neutral approaches and free thinking creative approaches. What happens after the pitch. Every agency executive goes back to the office to figure out how his or her department can get the most action despite what is right for the client.

Integration as we know it today is simply this: All your marketing efforts are integrated across all of an agency's disciplinary areas. For agencies, integration is great...as long as it's all about advertising.

Jeff Jaffe writing for iMedia Connection gets into this subject far more intelligently then I can:

Jaffe Juice: The Agency of the Future Jaffe Juice: The Agency of the Future
Joseph explains why Integration in its current form will almost always fail (and miserably at that, and offers up a new breed of agency.
By Joseph Jaffe

Most of my career has been spent in the area of media and I always thought I fully understood integration since I never really cared whether the solution included media or not. Jeff's line of thinking goes far beyond that primitive thought of mine. It makes perfect sense and it is very achievable. We just have some very old and very entrenched modes of agency think to get past.

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