VIDEO: Media agencies may split: PHD's Mark Holden

Asked how the digital landscape may change over the next five years, Holden notes that the most visible changes will occur in user interfaces. While infrastructure such as 4G networks and cloud computing will be "really important", interface changes expected, including the interweaving of social networks and websites, will "change our experience of the world", he says.

("These changes) will allow us to engage with our devices in much more intuitive ways," he said. One way this may happen is for advertisers to begin using consumers' social graphs to offer targetted content.

Holden says the next five years will see media agencies forced to concentrate on both content creation and implimentation and building more and more sophisticated real-time bidding platforms. "Media agencies really need to accept the fact that there are two sides of their businesses that they'll need to focus on," he notes.

This could eventually involve a formal divestment of the parts of the agency dealing solely with bidding platforms.

These changes would be about building efficiencies within agencies, he says, and will further define a media agency's distinction from creative agencies. "Creating the core idea will still be the role of the creative agency - there's no question about that," he says. "Media (agencies) will develop content, use it in different ways, (and) optimise those in real time through their systems."