"Frankly, we're not there yet," says Eric Druckenmiller, vice president of media for Deep Focus. While "those pieces of the puzzle are definitely coming together," Druckenmiller says his agency is not yet auditioning for a starring role in a multimedia campaign. Instead, he says Deep Focus is happy with the gradually increasing influence it has been able to exert on recent projects.

The near-term goal, Druckenmiller says, is to continue pushing to be upstream in the multi-agency conversations that influence overall brand strategies; however, he doesn't envision overseeing an entire campaign in the near term unless the Deep Focus family grows to include an in-house media buying agency.

Similarly, many industry experts report that the recent acceleration of the digital ad market prevents them from looking too far ahead to potential leadership opportunities. Just hiring enough staff to keep up with growing digital demands is enough of a challenge. "As you convince people to spend 20 to 30 percent of their dollars on the online space, most agencies are still preparing how to take on those opportunities once they do present themselves," says Druckenmiller's colleague Christian Borges, Deep Focus' vice president of publicity.

In fact, most industry insiders seem to agree that interactive agencies will eventually lead large-scale campaigns, but they perceive that will occur as a result of natural evolution, rather than as a consequence of any drastic efforts on their part. "As the digital space matures and grows and more digital dollars are on the line, agencies will take more of a lead role and a seat at the table in terms of how those dollars are spent, which for the most part right now traditional agencies still dictate," Borges says.