If you have been part of the advertising industry for the last 10 years or so, you have witnessed an interesting shift. Once upon a time, the lines were well and clearly drawn. Digital and creative functioned as separate units, in fact, separate agencies. Creative agencies handled the big picture – strategy, creative direction and execution across media (except digital), all based on the all-important ‘big idea’. Digital agencies handled performance marketing, website optimisation and later social media management, often taking the lead from creative agencies on integrated marketing communications (IMC).

As someone who has seen the evolution of the Pakistani advertising industry over the last two decades and has been privy to global trends, it is safe to say that the answer lies in a hybrid future. And agencies are already responding to these shifts. As both sides become more adept at what the other does best, signalling an inevitable convergence into a hybrid model of advertising services.

For decades, creative agencies have been the heart of brand building. Their expertise in shaping brand identity, developing narratives and producing visually stunning content has been their core offering. However, in today’s digital landscape, storytelling alone is no longer enough. As consumers spend more time online (yes, even in Pakistan), the way they engage with brands has become multi-faceted, from social media interactions to e-commerce experiences. Creative agencies are adapting by integrating more digital capabilities into their offerings.

Agencies once purely focused on TV commercials, radio, print and outdoor ads are expanding their digital toolkits. Many have hired digital strategists, performance marketers and data analysts to stay competitive. They are focusing on social listening, user experience (UX) design and digital performance metrics – everything that would have fallen within the remit of a digital agency. Take Ogilvy, a global creative powerhouse that has heavily invested in its digital transformation. Their creative teams now collaborate closely with technologists and data experts to craft campaigns that are as effective online as they are offline. This shift is mirrored in Pakistan, where their office is embracing digital strategy alongside traditional creative. The same goes for the Publicis Group both in the region and in Pakistan – IAL Saatchi & Saatchi has amped up their digital services, as has Adcom Leo Burnett.

These changes reflect a growing realisation: to stay relevant, creative agencies must evolve from idea factories to full-spectrum, digitally capable creative partners.

On the flip side, digital agencies, originally seen as more focused on performance marketing, SEO, digital media buys and later social media prowess, are recognising the value of creative storytelling. Data-driven campaigns, while efficient, can lack the emotional resonance needed to engage consumers. The most effective campaigns, as we have seen lately, combine creativity with the subtle precision of digital tools.

Digital agencies are responding by building their own creative teams, often hiring more creative directors, content creators and brand strategists ready to move out of their comfort zones into areas traditionally dominated by creative agencies. The savviest of them are no longer pushing click-through rates, conversion metrics and questionable impressions. They are moving beyond social media calendars to deliver holistic brand experiences that merge creative innovation with the analytical precision that digital platforms provide.

A digital-first agency like Digitz in Pakistan (affiliated with Digitas) is evolving its services as a fully integrated agency while amping up technological offerings to create a distinctive space. Similarly, Viral Edge is making inroads into what was traditionally creative agency territory. While East River has gone in a different direction, pitching creative solutions (both traditional and digital) specifically to foreign clients.

The future lies with agencies that can offer the best of both worlds: creativity with a tech-driven, digital-first mindset. But as both types of agencies increasingly encroach on each other’s turf, the future is clear. Creative and digital will no longer be two separate disciplines.

This convergence will lead to a new breed of agencies capable of delivering both emotionally resonant brand-building campaigns and data-driven digital strategies. They will have the flexibility to pivot across platforms, creating content that can be optimised for every medium, from TV to billboards, from Instagram stories to TikTok ads. They will merge big idea thinking that has always defined the best creative work with the real-time optimisation that digital marketers excel at. The good news is that naysayers got it wrong. Advertising is not dying anytime soon. It is just in the process of being reborn.

Ads once made for TV will eventually be made for social media platforms and OTT platforms, which are no longer going to be completely ad-free. The nature of these ads will change to bite-sized duration, a different pacing and creative narrative, and in some ways go back to basics, marrying functionality with entertainment. In-store advertising will change form and space and migrate to e-commerce sites. Radio advertising may well need to do the same to survive and conquer streaming services.

Digital posts will become the billboards with your thumb imitating a speeding car as it scrolls through social media posts, stopping at the ones that catch your eye for the same reason that billboards did. Content will be the icing on the cake – engaging, entertaining and educating while building on the brand’s equity, increasing consumer loyalty in a way that advertising may not be able to do. For brands, it’s a win-win. They won’t need to hire two different agencies, instead reverting to the one-stop solution.

MENA agencies like TBWA/RAAD have restructured their teams to bring creative, digital and performance marketing under one umbrella, while Impact BBDO now focuses on delivering immersive experiences. In APAC, Dentsu Webchutney is a standout example, excelling at digital creativity that is both emotional and data-driven. McCann in Singapore is not only creating campaigns with a bent towards platforms like TikTok but also flexing their content muscles.

Agency networks in both APAC and MENA have been hiring talent with expertise in AI and AR/VR technologies in their creative teams to enhance their offerings. Nothing quite exemplifies the changing tide more than the multiple mergers of Wunderman Thompson and VML Y&R. First, WPP merged the legacy creative brand JWT with Wunderman, a digital and data-driven agency. Next, Young & Rubicam (Y&R) was merged with VML, a digital-first agency. Both were designed to balance the creative legacies of JWT and Y&R with the digitally savvy, data-rich approaches of Wunderman and VML. This hybrid model took one step further when both were merged to form the new wholly integrated VML.

While some may question why legacy brand names would be let go, others may applaud the digital-first objective. The new nomenclature of simply VML will offer creatively compelling storytelling within digitally driven brand landscapes.

A primary obstacle on this road to convergence is the internal culture of agencies. Creative and digital teams often come from different backgrounds and merging these mindsets will be difficult. Creative teams will struggle to adapt to the fast-paced iterative nature of digital, while digital teams may find it hard to integrate the emotional resonance required as well as the importance of long-term brand building. One will have to pick up speed and enjoy the exhilaration that comes from the unknown. The other will have to slow down and smell the roses along the way. In Pakistan, the transformation may be slower. But this is not a trend. It is the future. And it’s happening as we speak.

It’s a brave new world out there, folks. Those who embrace it will ride the waves, nay, glide over them, in their digital dinghies with a creative captain at the helm and a big idea still charting the course. Those who fight against it will drown.

Rashna Abdi is CEO, Vitamin C. rashna@vitamincdigital.com