Close-Up: Live issue - The Folk looking beyond advertising.

AnalogFolk plans to open up new dialogues between brands and consumers.

Since the turn of the millennium, new agencies have agonised over the model that would touch the consumers of the future. Naked began by unhooking strategy from execution and selling raw ideas. Anomaly later purported to deliver clients anything from products and packaging to a launch campaign, while Adam & Eve offered up creative teaming with media at the heart of the offer.

But, in 2008 (and with imminent threats of an economic slowdown), the six partners of London's latest start-up, AnalogFolk, have defected from DDB, Diageo, Naked, i-level and Isobar in search of a new proposition: an agency that doesn't create advertising at all. At least not as standard.

Instead, it hopes to deliver clients 'communications products' that enrich consumers' lives and become the interface for an ongoing social dialogue. As Bill Brock, one of AnalogFolk's founders, explains: 'There is an opportunity for brands to develop communications that are as valuable to people as the products they sell.'

Like what? Examples religiously and continually cited include Nike+, the interactive website that makes jogging fun; Run London, Nike's city-wide running event; and Monopoly Live, a real-life version of the board game aided by taxis fitted with GPS systems. While all three require heavy technological expertise, they ultimately bring consumers together in the analogue space, something that points to the agency's choice of name.

AnalogFolk believes these projects are part of a growing opportunity for brands to develop new dialogues with consumers. And, provided clients are open-minded enough to think beyond traditional broadcast advertising, it also believes we may eventually see a shift towards business objectives that are answered by products, rather than traditional advertising. Brand utility is the latest buzz phrase.

Theoretically, AnalogFolk is a compelling proposition. Few would argue that the rise of digital and the convergence of media have been slowly changing media habits, resulting in power shifting from the marketers back to the consumers.