Traditional ad agencies continue to shun online

New Media Age, July, 2004 by Susie Harwood

Traditional ad agencies are still shunning online advertising, forcing media owners to go direct to clients, despite the massive increase in online ad spend.

A new breakdown of ad sales figures published by the Interactive Advertising Bureau for the first time revealed that 49% of the 353.6m [pounds sterling] spent online last year was direct from clients, and only 51% through agencies.

Danny Meadows-Klue, chief executive of the IAB, said that this is disproportionate when compared to traditional media channels. where the majority--somewhere between 80% and 90%--of media spend goes through agencies.

"We want online advertising to be a very easy decision for every client and to do that we need to get agencies more involved," he said.

But...