We are in the middle of a frenzy created simply by a few dollars shifting from traditional media to interactive. We are seeing acquisitions with silly valuations, talent wars, agency consolidations and more importantly agency transformations galore among the service companies, media outlets, and technology vendors that stand to gain from this shift. You all have heard reports of agencies refusing to participate in RFPs or even turning down real work because they don’t have the folks to staff the projects.

I predict an unexpected tsunami of work is on the way which the Interactive industry and infrastructure will not be prepared o handle.

Consider this, over the past three years a popular retailer that I’m close to (but wont divulge) who’s annual media budget has hovered around $200MM dollars had shifted from 2% to 4.5% to interactive. For him “this digital thing“ has come of age, and today he and his team are debating whether it should represent 11-13% of their total spend as they do their planning for 2008.

For those of you doing the math that means one marketers contribution to the digital pot has a bit more than doubled in the past three years. At their conservative estimate they will more than double that in 2008 alone. In this marketers’ mind it’s not such a big deal “so I’m shifting 5% of my budget to something that’s proven now”. To the marketer its’ only 5 points, to the interactive industry it’s 100 points which is BIG.

This bodes well for all of us in the industry right? My thinking is when the tidal wave hits two things can happen you may drown, or float and rise with the tide. Are you ready?