Campaign magazine ran a piece last week about how 'traditional' agencies were doing on embracing digital. The article rated agencies out of ten based on stuff like their website, whether they were on twitter, what work they'd done, etc.

They marked us 7/10 and said "Wieden + Kennedy is perceived as one of the best digital ad agencies in town. Its website is well set up and brimming with information. Its twitter feed is popular and its blog is one of the best-regarded in the industry."

Can't complain too much about that, I guess.

The Creative Social Blog commented on this and asked its readers (mainly interactive creative types, I guess) to rate the agencies. Here's how the scores are going:

Can't complain about that, either.

But what about if we rate Campaign on their own interactive 'walking the walk'?

Blog: http://community.brandrepublic.com/blogs 9/10*

Twitter followers: 987 Campaignmag

Website rating: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/ 6/10 (lots of info on there but bloody hard to find anything and all mixed up with other titles. Missed opportunity to really develop a conversation amongst the industry community.)

Best digital work done: was the e-mag, which seems to have been withdrawn

Biggest digital talent: Rory Sutherland

Overall rating: could try harder, especially in an environment which, for technological and financial reasons, is becoming increasingly challenging for the much-loved 'advertising rag'.

*That's for Rory Sutherland, whose blog is brilliant.

Any views on this from our readers?

Some green shoots, yesterday.

So, back from holidays and how are things in the UK? Just having a look at recent news in the advertising sector:
JD Decaux (one of the world's largest outdoor advertising companies) reports 95% fall in profits for first half of 2009. (Guardian article.)
The number of media companies going bust went up by 50% in first half of 2009. 300 companies went out of business in the first six months of the year. (Guardian article.)
Omnicom (the holding company behind BBDO, DDB and TBWA among others) posted a 24% fall in profit in the three months to the end of June. (Guardian article.)
Publicis Groupe (the holding company behind Saatchi & Saatchi, BBH and, er, Publicis) reported a 13% fall in net profit in the 3 months to the end of June. (Guardian article.)
WPP ( the world's biggest advertising holding company: Ogilvy, Y&R, JWT, etc) reported a 6.7% fall in revenue for the first four months of 2009 and reported that pre-tax profit was significantly down. (Guardian article.)
Part of the result of this has been the announcement of significant job cuts: 3,500 announced at Omnicom in December 2008, 1,800 at Publicis, and 7,000 planned at WPP this year.

Hmmm. Not a very encouraging picture to return to overall. And my worry is that when the business contracts like this, it never comes back. Ad spend may recover but, for most agencies, profit margins won't. In the new world we'll all just have to continue to work harder, quicker, smarter.

On a cheerier note, the sun is shining in London and the chilli plant on my window sill is thriving.  Green shoots and red fruits.