Staff Reporters
Jun 29, 2009

MediaTV: Keith Smith

Keith Smith, president, international, of TBWA Group, says advertising "at the speed of culture" - or the speed of technology - is a necessity to reach modern audiences.

“We have to be advertising during the day, during the night; all the time that our audiences are online,” Smith tells MediaTV, pointing out that every minute, 10 hours of footage is uploaded onto YouTube. “We have to be engaged with our audiences every moment of every day, and if we’re not, we run the risk that the audiences and the consumers will build their own relationships with their brands. They will build their own feelings and reflect those feelings online.”

He adds: “If we’re not in control of that conversation, if we’re not guiding that conversation, then we run the risk of those conversations getting out of hand.”

Smith argues that advertising agencies are equipped to communicate with social media-addicted crowds, but in order to do so, they must open themselves up to the prospect of hiring talent outside the advertising industry, at the people who best understand how online communities connect.



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