Tom Bedecarré is succeeding like few others in creating the ad agency of tomorrow, today.

In just the last few days, his global firm, AKQA, launched the new campaign for "Halo: Reach," which includes everything from a dark, engrossing online video series set in the video game's universe, to a robot that is enables fans to help select the position of 54,439 points of light for a new social media-enabled light sculpture.

And Friday morning, AKQA will launch the latest in a long line of innovative digital & mobile initiatives for Target.

Dubbed My TargetWeekly, the solution will enable shoppers to customize Target's weekly ad to best fit their interests, and to even create alerts, which will send them the latest offers on their favorite brands and items via PC and mobile phone. The idea: to target, as it were, the smaller number of hard-to-reach, digitally savvy shoppers - who tend to spend more than others. They can even share their shopping experience via Facebook.

"Target is doing what smart retailers have to do: Go to where the customers are," Rebecca Lieb, vice president, North America at the research firm Econsultancy, tells USA Today. "You have to engage people on their own terms."

That may as well be Bedecarré's persona motto. In part one of an expansive source interview for my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, Bedecarré shares the behind the scenes steps he took to shape what is arguably one of the most forward thinking digital marketing firms in the world

"There are a lot of advertising people who want to hang onto the past, want to hang onto 30-second television commercials and full-color magazine ads, and I think it's very hard to catch up," he tells me, with considerable understatement, before explaining how his team started putting the pieces in place a decade ago to capitalize on this amazing new era.

Over the next few days, I'll share more from this interview, including Bedecarreé's insights on some of today's mos exciting new channels, as well as his firm's most famous digital initiatives, from Design The World A Coke, to Nike PhotoID, to the Target snow globe iPhone app and more. 

Tom Bedecarré, CEO, AKQA: Building The Agency of Tomorrow, Today (Pt. 1)

(Approx. 3:10)

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