Advertising Agencies
The advertising agency (or other types of marketing communication agencies) creates, produces, and distributes the messages. The working arrangement between advertiser and agency is known as the agency–client partnership.
An advertiser uses an outside agency because it believes the agency will be more efficient in creating advertising messages than the advertiser would be on its own. The advertising professionals working for the agency are experts in their areas of specialization and passionate about their work. Not all advertising professionals work in agencies. Large advertisers, either companies or organizations, manage the advertising process either by setting up an advertising department (sometimes called marketing services) that oversees the work of agencies or by setting up their own in-house agency. Tasks performed by the company’s marketing services department include the following: set the budget and select the agencies; coordinate activities with vendors, such as media, production, and photography; make sure the work gets done as scheduled; and determine whether the work has achieved prescribed objectives.
Now we’ll discuss types of agencies in order to well understand the advertising industry and after demonstrating any type of agencies, we’ll give examples of any types in Iran to better understand which types in Iran is suitable for your business.
Types of Agencies
We are concerned primarily with advertising agencies in this blog, but other areas, such as public relations, direct marketing, sales promotion, and the Internet, have agencies that provide specialized promotional help as well.
In addition to agencies that specialize in advertising and other areas of marketing communication, there are also consulting firms in marketing research and branding that offer specialized services to other agencies as well as advertisers. Since these various types of marketing communication areas are all part of an integrated marketing communication approach, we cover many of these functions in separate blogs in the future.
- Full-Service Agencies In advertising, a full-service agency includes the four major staff functions of account management, creative services, media planning, and account planning, which includes research. A full-service advertising agency also has its own finance and accounting department, a traffic department to handle internal tracking on completion of projects, a department for broadcast and print production (sometimes organized within the creative department), and a human resources department.
For instance, one of the full-service agencies in Iran is Maat Advertising Agency located in Tehran and it’s one of the subsidiaries of Maat MARCOM Holding which is discussed later in this blog.
- In-House Agencies Like a regular advertising agency, an in-house agency produces ads and places them in the media, but the agency is a part of the advertiser’s organization rather than an outside company. Companies that need closer control over their advertising have their own internal in-house agencies. An in-house agency performs most—and sometimes all—of the functions of an outside advertising agency and produce materials, such as point-of-sale displays, sales team literature, localized ads and promotions, and coupon books, that larger agencies have a hard time producing cost effectively. Retailers, for example, find that doing their own advertising and media placement provides cost savings as well as the ability to meet fast-breaking deadlines. Some dairy companies, such as Kalleh in Iran, also create their own advertising in-house to maintain complete control over the brand image.
- Specialized Agencies Many agencies either specialize in certain functions (writing copy, producing art, or creating digital ads), audiences or markets (youth, minority groups, such as Asian, African American, or Hispanic), or industries (health care, computers, agriculture, or B2B communication). In addition, some agencies specialize in other marketing communication areas, such as branding, direct marketing, sales promotion, public relations, events and sports marketing, packaging, and point-of-sale promotions. Sometimes one-client agencies are created to handle the work of one large client. Let’s take a look at two special types of agencies:
- Creative boutiques are agencies, usually small (two or three people to a dozen or more), that concentrate entirely on preparing the creative execution of the idea or the creative product. A creative boutique has one or more writers or artists on staff but generally no staff for media, research, or strategic planning. Typically, these agencies can prepare advertising to run in print and broadcast media as well as in out-of-home (such as outdoor and transit advertising), Internet, and alternative media. Creative boutiques usually serve companies directly but are sometimes retained by full-service agencies that are overloaded with work.
- Media-buying services specialize in the purchase of media for clients. They are in high demand for many reasons, but three reasons stand out. First, media have become more complex as the number of choices has grown—think of the proliferation of new cable channels, magazines, and radio stations. Second, the cost of maintaining a competent media department has escalated. Third, media-buying services often buy media at a low cost because they can group several clients’ purchases together to get discounts from the media because of the volume of their media buys.
In order to know about this type of agencies in Iran, let’s take a look at subsidiaries of Maat MARCOM Holding. These subsidiaries and their specializations are discussed below. Let’s look at them:
- Hoodadtech Agency which is specialized in mobile app development and ICT solutions. For more information check out hoodadtech.com/en/
- Macan Digital Marketing Service is another subsidiary and as their name they are specialized in digital marketing area, for more information please visit their website at macan.agency
- Houger BTL Agency is one of the Maat MARCOM Holding subsidiaries which offers its customer BTL programs like POS, events and etc.
- Raimon Production Company is take their job done specializing in TV and radio commercial production, content video production and etc. Their website is here, click for more information about Raimon: raimonstudio.com
- Armani Media Agency (armaniads.com) is specialized in OOH advertising such as billboard, bus, subway and shopping mall advertising, by planning, buying or providing and monitoring the media to reach the clients to their media goals. The below figure demonstrates their field of specialization as a specialized agency
- Agency Networks and Holding Companies finally let’s talk about agency networks, which are large conglomerations of agencies under a central ownership.
Holding companies include one or more advertising agency network as well as other types of marketing communication agencies and marketing services consulting firms and as we discussed earlier, one of these type of agencies is Iran is Maat MARCOM Holding, please feel free and visit their website to better understand the network companies and also know their services in Iran (www.maat.ir ). The Holding structure is demonstrated below with its subsidiaries establish date.
How Are Agency Jobs Organized?
In addition to the CEO, if the agency is large enough, it usually has one or more vice presidents as well as department heads for the different functional areas. We will concentrate on five of those areas: account management; account planning and research; creative development and production; media research, planning, and buying; and internal services.
- Account Management The account management function (sometimes called account services) acts as a liaison between the client and the agency. The account team summarizes the client’s communication needs and develops the basic “charge to the agency,” which the account manager presents to the agency’s creative team. Once the client and agency together establish the general guidelines for a campaign, the account management team supervises the day-to-day development of the strategy.
Account management in a major agency typically has three levels: the management supervisor, who provides leadership on strategic issues and looks for new business opportunities; the account supervisor, who is the key executive working on a client’s business and the primary liaison between the client and the agency; and the account executive (as well as assistant account executives), who is responsible for day-to-day activities and operates like a project manager. A smaller agency will combine some of these levels.
- Account Planning and Research Full-service agencies often have a separate department specifically devoted to planning and sometimes to research as well. Today the emphasis in agency research is on gaining insights into consumer thinking and behaviors in order to develop messages that focus on the consumer’s perspective and relationship with the brand. The account planning group gathers all available intelligence on the market and consumers and acts as the voice of the consumer. Account planners are strategic specialists who prepare comprehensive information about consumers’ wants, needs, and relationship to the client’s brand and recommendations on how the advertising should work to satisfy those elements based on insights they derive from consumer research.
- Creative Development and Production A creative group includes people who write (copywriters), people who design ideas for print ads or television commercials (art directors), and people who convert these ideas into television or radio commercials (producers). One of the experts in this area prefers the title “conceptual engineer” for his work, which focuses on generating big ideas or concepts around which promotional campaigns may be built. Many agencies build a support group around a team of an art director and copywriter who work well together. In addition to these positions, the broadcast production department and art studio are two other areas where creative personnel can apply their skills.
- Media Research, Planning, and Buying Agencies that don’t rely on outside media specialists have a media department that recommends to the client the most efficient means of delivering the message to the target audience. That department has three functions: research, planning, and buying. Because the media world is so complex, it is not unusual for some individuals to become experts in certain markets or types of media.
- Internal Operations The departments that serve the operations within the agency include the traffic department and print production as well as the more general financial services and human resources (personnel) departments. The traffic department is the lifeblood of the agency, and its personnel keep track of everything that happens.
Reference
Moriarty, S., Mitchell, N., & Wells, W. (2015). Advertising and IMC Principles and Practices (10th ed.). Pearson Education.
