• The Times (U.K.), Friday, June 2, 2006 11:49 AM

"When wrestling with all the problems of managing the digital revolution, it's instructive to talk to advertising people who remember 1955," writes Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP Group, in The Times. At that point, advertising agencies were preparing for the new medium of television and "all that agencies had to do was acquire the same skills and confidence in the production of film as they possessed in print." The agencies developed a variety of strategies to deal with the new medium but were often hampered by the "all-too-human resistance to novelty and change." Fast-forward to 2006 and "again, it's proved hard for traditional organizations, comfortable with established techniques, to embrace the new." Then, like now, this is not due to "simple bloody-mindedness," Sorrell says, but often because "the new technologies seemed difficult to master, were largely unproven and showed little sign of being profitable."

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