Advertising Agencies, Role and Types

Definition of Advertising Agency

According to American marketing Association, "An Advertising agency is an independent business
organization composed of creative and business people who develop, prepare and place advertising in advertising
media for sellers seeking to find customers for their goods and services."

Advertising Agency is an independent business organization specialized in advertising related work which
undertakes the work of planning, preparing, and executing advertising campaign for its clients. Advertising
Agency is a body of experts specialized in advertising. Advertising Agency performs following activities for its
clients:
1. Planning: Advertising agency studies the product or services of clients to identify the inherent qualities
in relation to competitor's product or services, analysis competition and marketing environment to
formulate advertising plan.
2. Preparing: After the study of product, competition, and marketing environment the experts of agency
has to write, design, and produce the advertisement, it is also called formulation of ad-copy.
3. Executing: Now, media is selected for time or space, ad is delivered to media, checked, verified, and
released in media. After ad release payment is done to media and client is billed for the services
provided.
The first Advertising Agency was William Taylor in 1786 followed by James Jem White in 1800 in London
and Reynell & Son in 1812.

Role of Advertising Agencies

1. Creating an advertise on the basis of information gathered about product
2. Doing research on the company and the product and reactions of the customers.
3. Planning for type of media to be used, when and where to be used, and for how much time to be used.
4. Taking the feedbacks from the clients as well as the customers and then deciding the further line of
action
All companies can do this work by themselves. They can make ads, print or advertise them on televisions or
other media places; they can manage the accounts also. Then why do they need advertising agencies? The
reasons behind hiring the advertising agencies by the companies are:
The agencies are expert in this field. They have a team of different people for different functions like
copywriters, art directors, planners, etc.
The agencies make optimum use of these people, their experience and their knowledge.
They work with an objective and are very professionals.
Hiring them leads in saving the costs up to some extent.

There are basically 5 types of advertising agencies.

1. Full service Agencies
Large size agencies.
Deals with all stages of advertisement.
Different expert people for different departments.
Starts work from gathering data and analyzing and ends on payment of bills to the media people.
2. Interactive Agencies
Modernized modes of communication are used.
Uses online advertisements, sending personal messages on mobile phones, etc.
The ads produced are very interactive, having very new concepts, and very innovative.
3. Creative Boutiques
Very creative and innovative ads.
No other function is performed other than creating actual ads.
Small sized agencies with their own copywriters, directors, and creative people.
 4. Media Buying Agencies
Buys place for advertise and sells it to the advertisers.
Sells time in which advertisement will be placed.
Schedules slots at different television channels and radio stations.
Finally supervises or checks whether the ad has been telecasted at opted time and place or not.
5. In-House Agencies
As good as the full service agencies.
Big organization prefers these type of agencies which are in built and work only for them.
These agencies work as per the requirements of the organizations.
There are some specialized agencies which work for some special advertisements. These types of agencies need
people of special knowledge in that field. For example, advertisements showing social messages, finance
advertisements, medicine related ads, etc.

Functions of Advertising Agency

Advertising agency performs following functions:
1. Contacting Clients: Advertising agency first of all identify and contact firms which are desirous of
advertising their product or services. Ad-agency selects those firms which are financially sound, makes
quality products or services, and have efficient management.

2. Planning Advertisement: Advertising agency's next function is to plan ad for its client. For ad planning
following tasks are required to be performed by ad-agency:
o Study of clients product to identify its inherent qualities in relation to competitors product.
o Analysis of present and potential market for the product.
o Study of trade and economic conditions in the market.
o Study of seasonal demand of the product
o Study of competition, and competitors spending on advertising.
o Knowledge of channels of distribution, their sales, operations, etc.
o Finally, formulation of advertising plan

3. Creative Function: Creative people like - the copywriters, artists, art-directors, graphic-specialists have
to perform the creative function which is most important part of all advertising function.

4. Developing Ad-Copy: Ad-agency with the help of their writers, artists, designers, animators, graphic-
designers, and film-directors prepares and develops Ad-copy.

5. Approval of Client: Ad-copy is shown to the client for his approval

6. Media Selection and scheduling: It is very important function of ad-agency to select appropriate media
for its clients. Ad-agency has to consider various factors like- media cost, media coverage, ad-budget,
nature of product, client's needs, targeted customer, and etc while selecting media.

7. Ad-Execution: After approval, verification, and required changes, the ad-copy is handed to the media for
ad-execution.

8. Evaluation Function: After execution, it is the responsibility of ad-agency to evaluate the effectiveness
of ad to know how beneficial the ad is for its client.

9. Marketing Function: The advertising agency also performs various marketing function like- selecting
target audience, designing products, designing packages, determining prices, study of channel of
distribution, market research, sales promotion, publicity, etc.
10. Research Function: Ad-agency performs various research functions like- research of different media,
media cost, media reach, circulation, entry of new media, information regarding ratings, and TRP's of TV
programmes, serials.

11. Accounting Function: Accounting function of ad-agency includes checking bills, making payments, cash
discounts allowed by media, collection of dues from clients, payment to staff, payment to
outside professionals like- writers, producers, models, etc.