CHAPTER 02:

ORGANIZING FOR ADVERTISING & PROMOTION

(Organizational aspects of Promotion)

PLAYERS OF PROMOTION WORLD: Behind one ad, there are the efforts of so many
people. All these people are known as the players of promotion world. PARTICIPANTS
IN THE IMC PROCESS:

Advertiser
(Client)

Advertising
Agency

Media
Organizations

Smaller Marketing
Communication
Specialist organizations

Individuals offering
Collateral Services

In this chapter, we will try to understand the roles of Advertiser (client), Advertising Agency, and
smaller communication organizations.
1. Advertiser (Client)
Virtually every business organization uses some form of marketing communication. However,
the way a company organizes for communication depends on several factors like :
size of the company
number of marketed products
role of promotion in its marketing mix
promotion budget
Marketing departments structure etc.
In many organizations, marketing activities are divided along functional lines where ad and
promotion are considered as separate marketing functions such as sales, research etc. The
following diagram shows the location of ad and promotion manager in a centralized organization
system:

(a) Centralized System:

In centralized system, the organogram looks like:

President

Production

Finance

Marketing
Research

Marketing

Advertising

R&D

Sales

HR

Product
planning

The specific Duties of Advertising Manazger of a centralized organization:

Planning and Budgeting

Administration and Execution
Coordination with other Departments
Coordination with Outside Agencies and Services.

(b) Decentralized System: Where the grass root managers are also encouraged to make
decisions.
In large corporations with multiple divisions and many different products, it is very difficult to
manage all the advertising, promotion, and other functions through a centralized department.
These types of companies generally have a decentralized system with separate functional
departments (like manufacturing, R&D, marketing, finance, HR etc.) for various divisions,
product lines, or businesses.
In decentralized system, along with other marketing functions, promotional responsibility is
bestowed to several persons who are in charge of overall marketing of a product line/ Brand/
Business etc.
Large companies like P&G, Gillette Co, Nestle, etc. assign each product or
brand to a Brand Manager who is responsible for the total management of the
product / brand. The individual Product/Brand Manager is responsible for all
ad related activities. In one company, thus there can be many Product/Brand
managers.

Figure: A Decentralized Brand Management system :

Corporate

Production

Finance

Sales

Marketing

Product Management

Brand Manager

Research & Dev

Human Resource

Marketing Services

Ad agency (1)

Ad agency (2)
Brand Manager

Brand Manager

Ad agency (3)

In addition to these two system, we find another type which can be seen in some of very big
organizations. It is known as In-House Agency. This type of agency is created with a view to
minimize the cost and maintaining confidentially. In the following, we are discussing about Inhouse agency:
(c) In-House Agencies: Some companies, in an effort to reduce the costs and maintain greater
control over the agency activities, have set up their own ad agencies internally. In-house agency
is set up, owned, and operated by the advertiser.
Advantages:

Reducing advertising and promotion costs.

Develops sales presentation and sales force materials, package design, public relations.

Saves time

Bad experiences with outside agencies may be avoided.

Increased knowledge and understanding of own product and market.

Confidentiality ensured.

Disadvantages:

In house personnel may grow narrow or grow stale while working with the same product
line, but outside agencies get varied products, services, people, environment etc. that
make them more professional.

Lack experiences for handling same and few number of products/services.

Lack highly skilled specialists. So fails to attract creative talents.

Absence of flexibility, i.e. quite difficult to wind up the operation.

2. Advertising Firms/Agency

An ad agency is a service organization that specializes in planning and executing ad programs for
its clients. There are many different types of Ad agencies. However, under this banner we will
discuss about the activities and role of Full service Ad agency.
Full Service Agency:
Full Service Agency offers its clients a full range of marketing,
communication, and promotion services, including planning,
creating, and producing advertisements, performing research, and
selecting media. Full service agency also offer non-advertising
services like sales promotion, sales training, trade show materials
development, package design, and public relations and publicity.

THE UNIQUE DEPARTMENTS OF A THE FULL SERVICE AGENCY:

A full service agency may have several departments that we find in other marketing
organizations. But we will discuss only the unique departments a full service agency must have:
(1) Accounts services departments:
Account services Executive or the Account Executive is the link between the ad agencies the
clients. The Account executive is responsible for understanding the advertisers marketing and
promotion needs and interprets the needs to agency people.

When a client buys the services, the Account executive and the client work together and establish
guidelines for an ad campaign or for a single ad. In preparing the guide lines, the following
questions are needed to be answered:

What is purpose of the ad

Who is target audience

What promise does the ad make

Who supports the promise ( secondary sources or any model)

What media to use

What is the tone of the ad

Is there any unique opportunity ( regarding time, media, tech, brand loyalty, product etc)

(2) Marketing services departments:

In order to communicate effectively with the customers, the agency must have a clear
understanding of the target audiences. Marketing services are mainly related with RESEARCH
and MEDIA.
Research department: whose functions are to gather, analyze, and interpret information that
will be useful in developing effective ad for their clients, selecting the source, viewers response,
target achievement etc.
Media department: whose functions are to analyze, select, and contract for space and time in
the media that will be used to deliver the clients ad messages?
(3) Creative Services departments:
Creative services department is responsible for the creation and execution of advertisements.
Creative services department is headed by a Creative Director who is responsible for:

Stimulating the creativity

Approving all ideas before final output

Overall supervision of creativity.

There are several groups of persons responsible for creating a new ads, and the people in these
groups have to work in compliance to create an innovative ad. Normally we can divide the expert
persons in to two Groups:
(i)

Copywriters

(ii)

(ii) Artisans/ Artistes

The individuals who conceive the ideas for the ads and write the headlines, subheads, and body
copy are

known as copywriters.

The individuals who work with artistic components like acting, photography, sketching, painting,
music, etc. of the ad are known as Artisans/Artistes.

While copywriters are responsible for what the massage says,

The Art department is responsible for how the ad looks.
Creative department of any ad agency is the most problematic department, and also very
challenging. Many people believe that creativity occurs only in a unstructured environment. So,
creative department is flexible, but is strict in quality and deadline control.
(4) Traffic department:
Major Full Service Agencies have a department known as Traffic department. In large
agencies, which have many clients, coordinating the creative and production processes can be a
major problem. The traffic department coordinates all phases of production to see that the ads are
completed on time and that all deadlines for submitting the ads to the media are met. Some large
ad agencies may have their own Production department too. Production department may
comprise with printers, engravers, photographers, typographers, and also sometimes the
complete broadcast production studios. However, as all these are very expensive and as these are
separate businesses, so most of the ad agencies hire these services from outside.

3. Smaller Marketing Communication Specialist

Organizations
Over the past few decades, several alternatives to full service agencies have evolved. They are:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Creative Boutiques
Media Buying Services
Direct-Response agencies
Sales Promotion agencies
Public Relations Firms
Interactive agencies
Virtual agencies
Event management
agencies

1. Creative Boutiques: Although Boutiques mean a small shop selling clothes and other items.
A creative boutique is an agency that provides only creative services. Creative boutiques are
established by a group of creative people. Full-service agencies often subcontract work to
creative boutiques when they are very busy or want to avoid adding full-time employees to
their payroll. Sometimes the advertisers buy creativity directly from the creative boutiques.
2. Media buying services: Media buying services specialize in the buying media, particularly
News papers space, radio and television time. The advertisers also buy the services of the
Media buying agencies for :
* placing the ads developed by the creative boutiques
* planning their overall media strategy.
3. Direct response agency: One of the fastest growing areas of IMC is direct marketing, where
companies communicate with customers through electronic media, mail, telephone etc.
Direct response agency provides a variety of services, including creation and maintenance of
data-base management.

4. Sales Promotion agency: Developing and managing sales promotion programs like contests,
sweepstakes, scratch cards, refunds and rebates, premium and incentive offers, sampling
programs is a very complex task. Most companies use the services of Sales promotion
agencies to develop and administer these programs.
5. Public Relations firms: The PR firm develops and implements programs to manage the
organizations publicity, image, and affairs with the customers and other relevant publics like
employees, suppliers, stockholders, government, labor groups, citizen action groups, and the
general public.
6. Interactive agencies: With the rapid growth of the Internet and other forms of interactive
media, a new type of specialized marketing communication organization has evolved, and
this is known as Interactive agency. They specialize in the creation of interactive media like
CD-ROMs, Kiosks, and Websites.
7. Virtual agencies: A very recent idea. Some people think that most of the activities of ad
agencies are done outside the office. And if this is true, then what is the justification of
maintaining a very big office with so many personnel? These people believe in the
philosophy of keeping a small office and doing everything outside. If necessary they go for
organizing video conferencing at the time of emergency instead of meeting in the office
room.
8. Event management (marketing) agencies: Recently the marketers emphasized exploring
and exploiting the scope for attracting millions of customers to their brands, products, or
services through some proactive events. There are organizations who maintain database of all
events throughout the world. Sometimes these specialized agencies create events for
promotion and communication. Examples are cricket tournaments, Olympic games, Pohela
Boisakh, education fair, real estate fair etc.

Losing and Gaining Clients:

LOSING AND GAINING CLIENTS:
WHY AGENCY LOSES CLIENTS:

Poor performance or services of Ad firm

Conflicts of interest including Compensation issues.

Miscommunication

Changes in the clients corporate

Unrealistic demands by the clients and/or marketing strategies.

Personality conflicts

Declining sales

How agency gains clients:

Referrals: Existing clients bring new clients because of

excellent performances of the agency

Presentation: Making presentation in different companies.

Other marketing techniques.