AKQA’s Lars Bastholm has something to say

Every person who works in advertising should watch this.

It’s long and it was filmed a year ago. But it’s a fantastic interview.

Now that people are spending more time online, how come agencies don’t allocate their budgets more to interactive? Who do agencies spend $1,000,000 producing a television commercial and just $100,000 on a microsite? And the best part is the art card at the end of the spot; it tells viewers to go online to book. If the commercial is supposed to drive traffic online, shouldn’t the budget be distributed better?

Some ad people embrace interactive. Others, not so much. It’s these others that concern me. Back in the day, the ideas agencies created shaped our culture. Today, users are shaping our culture and affecting what we do as advertisers. Users are smart, creative, friendly, interesting, funny, talkative, and powerful. To not embrace the medium is to turn your back on users. And when you do that, you might as well call it a day.

This is a great example of telling a story to drive people to the web.