They don't want credit, they don't want to be stars, they don't even want to get paid - that is, not until somebody else does. The minds behind the Digital Talent Agency, a self-proclaimed agency of online ad agencies, want to become a human filter for businesses - by "packaging" small- and mid-sized ad agencies into full-scale Web production teams, much like the Hollywood agencies they're modeling their business on - and scrape a little off the top. But then, who wouldn't?
"If you've got a US$1 million for a project online, there's a small list of companies to turn to - if you've got less, it's not clear where to go," says Steve Kirsh, co-founder of DTA. "[The agency] is like the guy behind you in the cocktail party who is giving you hints, the names of people, their interests, and concepts to avoid - like, 'Hey - he hates red.'"
From the perspective of a small agency, DTA's main purpose is to educate potential big-time clients that the agency exists. "We have 15 people and for us to get into these major pitches is sometimes difficult because large companies rule us out because we're not large," says Steven Sacks, creative director at Digital Pulp, who is in preliminary talks with DTA.
Headland Digital Media, an interactive design agency and division of Pearson Group (with properties like Penguin Books and Addison Wesley), turned to DTA to find extra hands when it was working seven days a week, recalls creative director Derik Murray. "[DTA] allows you to expand the work you're doing without running out the door, hiring four new people, buying four new machines and then four months later have them sitting empty," Murray says.
DTA maintains a roster of design, engineering, ecommerce, and production agencies, focusing on niche companies with staffs of two to 25 people. On the other side, DTA courts largish corporations which might otherwise be baffled as to where to turn for online design and production. The agency has so far done deals for Sprint, PG&E, and MPlayer, among others. No one signs exclusive contracts with DTA, and the agency collects no fees upfront, but it does takes a cut of any deals it brings together.
"[DTA] makes sense, and it's a smart take on the marketplace," says Evan Neufeld, an advertising analyst at Jupiter Communications. Like successful Web development franchise USWeb which "packages" its own nationwide store of employees, DTA provides a financial solution for small shops now threatened by the dominance of full-service agencies.
The question is whether big businesses will embrace yet another middleman, which ultimately costs them money. Most firms will eschew intermediaries because they want one company accountable for projects, says Matthew Childs who directs Interactive Communications for Nike. "When you put another layer between you and the group delivering your messages, it gets to be a game of telephone," Childs says.
And Michael Diamant, CEO at 25-person interactive content and advertising company T3, raises the issue that DTA may not even be all that attractive to the fledgling companies it seeks to help. "If there was a company that could fill in my weak spots, ...where I can say, 'I need a business writer now,' that would be wonderful," says Diamant. "But otherwise, I know where our strengths lie and I can tell that to companies."
From the Wired News New York Bureau at FEED magazine.
