The 3.0 age needs fresh approach

The new era (Remodelling the agency relationship for the 3.0 age, MW 5 August) does indeed demand a completely fresh approach and a move away from using 20th century agency models and structures to solve 21st century business challenges. The advent of a generation of creative collective, collaborative agency models, such as ourselves at The Assembly have found that clients are ready for a different approach.

For decades, the discussion about the future of agencies has been about what they create – the output: broadcast, print, web, mobile, social media and so on. The next stage in the evolution of the agency will be a focus on who – the input, the people. A focus facilitated by an increasingly borderless and open-source world.

As the role of the creative agency is becoming more fluid, the pool of top creative and strategic talent can be found working in agencies of all shapes and sizes, or independently, across disciplines and geographies. To leverage this distribution of creative talent, the future might very well be a networked agency not an agency network.

Trevor Hardy, founding member, The Assembly