Digital Media: Austin

There was an interesting PR piece in the Austin Business Journal on August 10th regarding Olive Interactive Design and Marketing. The basic gist of the story stated that the company is now fully focused on interactive. The company is transitioning away from print because more and more of their clients are demanding purely web-centric solutions. I don’t find this as a surprise at all considering that Internet Ad Spending Set To Overtake All Other Media By 2011. What I do find funny is that companies feel the need to announce that they are moving more towards interactive. Shouldn’t that be something that is expected? That is the way the world is moving, therefore that is the where the advertisers will be moving. If the more traditional ad agencies really want to cause a stir they should put out PR pieces saying, “We intend to stick our heads in the sand. Interactive is a fad.” Now that would be surprising. By the way, I don’t mean to pick on Olive because I see this type of story all the time with many different agencies.

I do agree with the quote at the end of the story regarding the talent shortage for interactive advertising. Flash designers with classical “art” training are definitely hard to find here in Austin. This is a wake up call to you classicly trained folks as well. Get out there and learn Flash and other emerging software programs like Silverlight.