What you see above is the first banner to run online, initiated by AT&T in 1994 and launched on hotwired.com. According to Advertising Age, this basic banner generated a click-through 
rate (CTR) of 78 percent. Today, the same banner wouldn’t achieve a CTR of 0.01 percent. Why?

With the proliferation of digital media and the increasing fragmentation of digital platforms, it will take much math and magic to achieve a winning formula. The growth and effectiveness of digital media have made agencies, bodies, advertisers, and technologies accountable for data on top of insight; performance on top of planning; and finally always on top of 
tactical campaigns.

According to [digital research firm] e-Marketer, the global online ad spending will cross $100 billion in 2013; which in turn makes it imperative for all stakeholders to make every penny count. This brings us back to mathematics.

Automation is increasingly playing a big role in the digital media scene, ranging from attribution modeling to real-time bidding and exchanges. This means that, today, you stand a better chance if you buy audiences rather than impressions, conversions rather than clicks; ultimately you get more than what you have paid for. For this to be achieved, you have to make sure you are partnering with the right technology providers and have established a joined-up approach to data. Additionally, such a progression to data requires an emerging caliber of technical skill sets, and data architects who, in turn, are responsible for mining and demystifying the data and turning it into business results.

Today is the time when agencies in the Middle East need to start investing behind digital math rather than mass, especially since the region is on the map for its global technology providers, agencies and advertisers, as well as media owners whose work should ultimately feed into the emerging digital ecosystem.

“Magic”, on the other hand, is the staging experience that enables creativity to come to life. It is not the “cherry on top”; actually it is as important as data. Agencies have always delivered the magic of ideas. Moreover, digital lead ideas from our region are making it 
to international awards and are coming back 
with Grand Prix, such as the latest award 
recently handed to Initiative Media for one of their key advertisers. Such creative innovation will need the creative and media agencies 
to transform their culture and [opt for an] 
approach from “offline lead” to “online lead”. Furthermore, it requires stakeholders to build a fluid structure that can easily adapt to embrace new digital media platforms and changes.

A new breed of creative skills is needed, adding a technical spin to the idea in an effort to cross integrate across multiple platforms and channels. More than that, agencies and advertisers alike need to approach communication planning as a 360-degree offering and to further demonstrate how offline and online work hand-in-hand to deliver meaningful business results and an award-winning experience that every brand wants to achieve. This also means that digital no longer needs to work in isolation, but [should] rather be infused with offline planning.

While the above might seem promising, it is not easy to attain. Complexities remain that need to be tackled, the biggest being time and deadlines. Depending on the industry, brands and agencies are working against tight turn-around times, which in turn might limit creativity and plant an extra challenge on agencies to deliver sound creative solutions.
In summary, success rests on marrying technology with creativity.

You will have to keep up with both and have the solution to adapt in a world where yesterday’s solution might not be valid tomorrow.