Bob Greenberg’s D&AD lecture

Bob Greenberg, co-founder of R/GA spoke at a D&AD lecture last night that I attended with a few friends. Bob spent the first half of the lecture giving an overview of what R/GA is and the history of the company, then played some videos of case studies, most of which I had seen before. I couldn’t help but feel most people in the room knew who he was and therefore the case studies and in depth background to the company wasn’t necessary. Personally, I would have preferred if he had have concentrated on some of the concepts he brought up in the end about the state of the design/advertising industry now and where it’s likely to be headed. Still, the overview wasn’t bad and I did learn more about the company, and remain a fan of their work. As an agency they definitely seem switched on when it comes to digital design and dynamic enough to move with industry shifts. One thing Bob pointed out was that the company re-invents itself every 9 years.

Later in his lecture Bob outlined that 50% of most brand’s demographic are watching TV, while the other 50% were using the Internet. Brands are still spending an average of 95% of their advertising budgets on TV, while only 5% goes to digital media. It’s therefore obvious that the digital advertising industry is going to expand rapidly as more money in transferred in to this market — especially as the way we watch TV changes. Bob went on to speak about the term ‘TV 2.0’, where films and television programmes are distributed freely in digital form — the same thing that happened to the music industry a few years ago. He refered to the site Quick Silver Screen, where you can stream loads of films and tv programmes for free, one of many places to download content in digital form. Bob recently detailed this concept in Ad Week, which you can read online here.

The shift in advertising budgets to digital media is not only going to come from TV, in the last few years above-the-line/print advertising budgets are being shifted in to digital advertising. This is happening here at Ogilvy, where 50% of their business is now digital and this figure is gradually increasing. This has meant they’ve had to start replacing print based creatives with digital ones (the process of how I got my job) so they can move with this trend to meet demands of their clients. All this means working as a digital/interactive designer is going to mean more opportunities and money in the future, something that obviously I am hoping for.

So, the advertising and design industry is constantly evolving as technology advances. One thing I like about R/GA is that 1/3 of the company are programmers and developers, and they involve everyone in the creative process, recognising the importance of technology in digital design. Many larger agencies are still stuck with the old structure of a copywriter and art director providing the entire creative concept, usually they are from a purely print background and often are unable to even use a computer. I don’t believes this model works with digital media either. R/GA also recruit a large number of writers and recognise the importance of story telling and narrative in design, another point I really agree with and try to include in my work.

Overall it was an interesting lecture and Bob certainly knows the industry well, however Sagmeister still remains the most inspiring lecture I’ve attended.