Advertising Agency: Introduction and Function BMS Notes
An independent business founded to provide specialised services for marketing in general and advertising in particular is known as an advertising agency. In modern parlance, the phrase “agency” is misleading.
These businesses are separate corporations, not agents in the legal sense. In the beginning, advertising companies served as space brokers, managing newspaper ads. That being said, the agencies’ roles have evolved throughout time. They now primarily serve marketers rather than the media.
It represents the manufacturer, distributor, or retailer as an agent or consultant. In legal terms, it is not an agency. At first, it served as a middleman for ads placed in newspapers and other media that belonged to the media owner.
They are now professionals in the planning, making, and putting of advertisements, or advertising experts. They organise and carry out whole marketing strategies. They carry out market research for commercial companies as well. They create the box or its labels, choose the brands or descriptions that are required. They choose the advertising medium. They create commercial commercials for TV and radio ads in addition to entertainment content.
Advertising Agency Functions
The core of every advertisement is copy. Since the copy team in an agency collaborates more closely with the art staff than any other department, the copy activity is often led by a copy director, who is ideally an artistic person. The copy team collaborates closely with the account executive and may use copy research conducted by the research department.
Copywriters might write for any medium or focus on just one. He has to be able to write and think clearly. Writers must have a strong sales mindset; some people find that having prior experience with personal selling or reporting is beneficial. Writers are often more recognised for their command of language than for their ideas, even if they do need creativity and provide some ideas.
For the same reason that copy directors need to be creative thinkers, art directors ought to be copy-minded. The advertising is composed of both text and art; copy and art are the advertisement. The connection between copy and art should be one of equality, cooperation, and understanding. The art department mostly handles space advertising.
It creates layouts for printed ads, purchases final artwork or photographs to accompany the ads, and visualises them. The art director stays up to date on the local artists and their abilities since the agency purchases more art than produces it.
Media
The media guy gathers, compiles, and evaluates media data. He then chooses which media outlets will run each client’s commercial and creates timetables detailing which advertisement will run where and on what day. After estimating costs for these schedules and receiving the client’s permission, the media team contracts to purchase advertising space.
The media department, as well as the TV and radio departments, may purchase broadcast time. The media team sometimes verifies that newspaper and magazine advertising are really appearing; other times, this is handled by the accounting department.
Selection and assessment are the two main tasks assigned to media men. Additionally, the media department adds to each client’s overall media strategy. It makes an effort to focus agency-media relationships inside the media department in the hopes of reducing the amount of time account executives might be occupied by salespeople and media representatives.
Research: The agency’s research team assists in attracting, retaining, and serving customers. The new company owners may be able to promote themselves more effectively to potential customers with the help of research. It could make it easier for the creative staff—especially the text and art staff—to produce better advertisements for customers. The contact person could find it easier to persuade his customer that his previous advertising campaign was successful.
Mechanical Manufacturing
This department is tasked for creating an effective printed advertising by transforming the content, drawings, and layout. This department, of course, works closely with the art and copy directors. He sends his work to the commercial printers for printing using a variety of commercial organisations.
Traffic
Traffic in an advertising firm is managed and scheduled. For every advertising, this department creates a work plan and a routing sequence. It then oversees the advertisement’s passage through all agency departments and stages.
After the advertising is ready, it is sent ahead of schedule to the media outlets that will air it. This crucial objective or target date can only be met if copy, illustrations, mechanical production, and customer approval are all completed on time.
Effective traffic monitoring is necessary if deadlines are to be met, work peaks and panics are to be minimised, the work flow is to be reasonably even rather than spasmodic, and coordination and cooperation are to be guaranteed. In the absence of a distinct traffic department, the production manager or the account executive is in charge of carrying out the task.
Accounting Common tasks for an agency’s accounting department include monitoring the placement of advertising in the media, comparing media invoices to orders, paying media bills, billing and collecting money from customers, and handling office routines, records, and bookkeeping.
Public Relations: Establishing and preserving goodwill with different segments of the public is the primary goal of this advertising agency department. Corporate or institutional publicity and advertising are the instruments of communication with these publics. Building better relationships between clients and the different segments of the public—customers, workers, intermediaries, and shareholders—is the primary responsibility of this department.
Managing the agency’s public relations with both current and potential clients is a small task.
Marketing for Sales and Merchandising
Advertising companies differ in how much emphasis they place on sales promotion and merchandising. Even inside the company, there may not be a single department, the activities might be combined into the marketing department, the merchandising department could become the marketing department, or the research department could be the home of merchandising and sales promotion.