In fact, the opposite is true. Ad people love nothing better than some groovy new gimmick that allows them to believe that their job isn't really flogging stuff, it's "brand engineering", "experiential engagement" or "360-degree insight". Every agency worth its salt is now "media neutral" (translation: does more than ads), and has a "Head of Social Media" (translation: digital specialist) whose job it is to "cool-hunt" (translation: keep abreast of new developments).

Just as with the politicos, it was the Obama campaign that turned a fad into a frenzy. It wasn't so much the campaign itself as the creative awards it won — The Great Schlep, for example, won the Droga5 agency the Titanium Lion at the Cannes Advertising Festival, an event every bit as important in the advertising world as the Film Festival is to Hollywood. All of a sudden, every creative director in London was clamouring for a digital campaign that would garner him the kind of acclaim Dave Droga was getting. In practice, that meant perfectly good copywriters — the kind of people who could knock out a couple of Carling Black Label spots before opening time — were suddenly spending most of their time building websites or wrestling with the intricacies of augmented reality as applied to iPhone apps. 

But what the cyber-champions appear to have missed is the essentially feral nature of the web. It isn't only Cameron and Brown who have come unstuck on Mumsnet: the agency Campbell Lace Beta attempted to "provoke a debate" by running ads suggesting that working women make bad mothers. When outraged Mumsnetters responded by emailing the agency's clients, demanding that it be fired, the "debate" was swiftly brought to an end with solicitors' letters threatening legal action against individual mums. 

Similarly, Cameron's "We can't go on like this" poster, such a success in the civilised environs of a focus group, provoked howls of mirth online — and dozens of parodies: my own favourite was the one that turned his heavily-airbrushed visage into an ad for Madame Tussauds. 

Personally, if I were Cameron or Brown, I'd ditch the webtoys and the apps and try to come up with a persuasive, simple, mass-market strategy — what we used to call "a good idea". Walkers crisps did that with their "Do us a Flavour" competition. It was one of the most successful promotions ever — interestingly enough, organised in the form of an election — with more than 1.2 million entries. But did it win any big creative awards at Cannes? Do us a favour — it wasn't even in the running.