The big question in the industry at the moment is “How should I gear up the digital team to work with the larger agency team?” Digital skills are unique and there are plenty of discussions and opinions on whether the Digital team should be a separate unit – with strategists, designers and developers sitting together OR whether the digital team should be integrated and split across the agency into disciplines such as Creative, Design and Studio/Production.
After many years of trials, I believe the industry has arrived at a robust strategy and most forward thinking agencies have started to implement it. What is this strategy? Digital must underpin all client marketing campaigns and be a standard brief requirement as online media does indeed dominate our society and is growing rapidly. Anyone planning a campaign needs to include digital and hence separating the Digital team out into its own separate business unit does not foster this integration and, in fact, can leave the digital component forgotten until the end. Poor planning! All creative departments, production departments and studios need to be hiring digital based skill sets so as to cross pollinate the team in general and be prominent in everyone’s minds and hearts as they execute any campaign from creative to dispatch.
Other channels such as catalogues, promotions, direct and so forth are able to run as specialist divisions as they are not always required on campaigns and the use of that channel is reliant on the strategic requirements of the client. This will vary between client and job. Not all client briefs will involve a catalogue for example. Digital however needs to be an element across all work – whether it is the minor or dominant channel.
What does this mean operationally? Firstly you need a digital strategist as part of the strategy team. Secondly you need to ensure that digital creative teams form part of the overall creative department. This allows for a greater level of collaboration and also cross pollination. As for the coding & development of digital post design, this can be optional. They can sit as a team if there is a large volume of work or can be integrated into the studio at large which is my personal preference. Why not ensure the print artwork operators cross train and develop their skills in digital – even if it starts as basic banner work? It fosters staff retention (training) and also provides improved staff utilisation as the digital and artwork roles can start to cross function when one side of the business is busier than the other.
The key to making this work is to clearly define the roles and responsibilities of the Digital team and how they will interact with the agency at large. Tick Boxer has a wide range of Digital Job Descriptions to get you started.
For more help and advise contact the Tick Boxer team.
