Mad Men Versus the Nerds
Consulting nerds are taking on the ad giants in digital
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Ad agencies have had to endure the rise of the geeks as Google and Facebook emerged as mighty marketing machines. The next challenge is spreadsheet-wielding nerds.
Consulting firms such as Accenture, Deloitte and IBM, better known for their offshore outsourcing armies, have been quietly building scale in digital marketing. In so doing, they're exposing a weakness among the Madison Avenue types at WPP, Publicis, and Omnicom: their lack of the tech wizardry crucial to many new publicity campaigns.