I was very much taken by this post by Mike Arauz.
It spoke to me.
In fact it spoke to the reason that I joined a specialist digital agency after 19 years in advertising.
Mike talks about how digital technology lets you do clever tricks.
And about how ad agencies tend to be good at storytelling.
But that real magic happens when you combine the two.
His post is well worth reading because he expands on these points and illustrates them with a lovely piece of video.
His Venn diagram (above) makes the point that it takes a combination of technological trickery and good old fashioned storytelling to create the magic.
And I guess the small area of overlap implies that this happens all too rarely.
For me, however, the area of overlap between tricks and storytelling is huge.
Huge as in huge opportunity.
The main reason I’m where I am today is that I wanted to work with ideas that are unconstrained by 30″ timelengths or A4 formats.
With ideas that are enabled and enhanced by technology and human interaction.
It’s true that, all too often, ‘creativity’ in digital agencies is interpreted as design rather than conceptual thinking.
But true also that the approach to technology in ad agencies is, all too often, equally naive.
Interesting times ahead as erstwhile ad agencies tool up with technical trick merchants, and erstwhile digital agencies tool up with conceptual storytellers.