When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
When all your ad agency has is a hammer, and they get paid thousands of dollars every time they swing that hammer -- they don't go looking for better tools.
Traditional advertising agencies have a hammer that pays them well. Television and big, creative, expensive, in-your-face-edgy media campaigns. The shiny sparkle that drives cars through rainforests and hurls executives off cliffs in parafoils. Why do we see this so much?
1. Most agencies get paid a percentage of the amount they bill for media spending.
2. Most people in ad agencies want to be filmmakers and artists.
Note the conspicuous absence of number three: TV ads are wildly successful. In fact, in terms of overall ROI (Return on Investment, or bang for the buck, or whatever) TV is almost the worst possible advertising medium.
The Internet is not nearly as cool. I mean, really. I'll admit it. Even Nike.com -- the king of bloated bandwidth requirements and edgy-cool flash -- is pretty lame, compared to a cool TV spot. (Though, frankly, a lot of TV spots are pretty lame these days, too.)
But "lame" shouldn't matter as much as "effective." David Ogilvy, ancient prophet of advertising, said "if it doesn't sell, it isn't creative." The only TV ads that ever sell are those call-in-30-seconds-for-a-free-squeegee spots. If TV remote controls could store credit card numbers and provide a "buy now" button, TV would be a great sales channel. (Get it? Channel? Har. Shoot me.)
On the other hand, a decent website can be an incredibly powerful sales tool. It can qualify, pitch, follow-up, close, and actually process a sale. Or hundreds of sales simultaneously.
And let's think about cost for a second. The simple production cost of a single TV ad rivals the most expensive of websites. And then a TV ad costs even more to air! A website just sits there, quietly selling for an almost negligible monthly fee.
If you're using an ad agency that wants you to invest in well-produced radio and TV spots, or full-page magazine ads, that's great. But understand that your agency is inherently conflicted when it comes to your website. And your website deserves more attention than it's probably getting.