An advertising agency is also called an ad agency or a creative agency. It is an industry whose particular function is to create, plan, and handle advertising, marketing, and promotion of businesses. It is generally an independent entity from its client that offers external perspective on how to market products and services. It can also manage the entire marketing, branding strategic plan, and sales of its clients.
An advertising agency can help with general advertising, making business or product advertisement, or with specialized service focusing on specific areas like financial work or company advertising. Some advertising agencies carry a full range of media and creative services and can work around various advertising media such as radio, press, television, and digital media.
Full service agency
A full service agency provides its clients a complete package. It offers a wide array of marketing, information and promotion tasks which includes planning, advertising, researching, and choosing media. Some agencies may also function for non advertising tasks such as business planning, sales promotion designing, sales materials and training, and public relations.
A major advantage of having the full service agency is it generally attracts and holds the finest skilled individuals, offering various services that might need an interconnected technique. That being said, it can provide an unbiased assessment of ideas of an external point of view relying on their extensive experience.
Creative services agency
Creative services agencies, also called creative boutiques and as the name implies, only caters creative services. There are businesses who look for an external creative talent, though they may have an in house advertising team but lack the creative expert to do the tasks.
Sometimes even full service agencies outsource from creative boutique especially during peak seasons or just to have skilled talents without additional permanent employees to pay. These creative boutiques are mostly established by the staff of the full service agencies’ creative team that left the firm and bring with them loyal clients who wish to continue with their services.
A-la-carte Agency
Just like in a restaurant, some clients just want to pick and mix. Some advertisers instead of using all of the advertising agency’s services, they simply pick the ones they need. This kind of services is available in a full service firm or in an individual agency that particularly works only on either creative works, product development, media, or research. But the two most in demand services that are catered by a la carte agencies are media and creative.
An a la carte service can work with faster resolution, great impartiality, and better communication which will generate improved results. Though, the role of managing and planning the advertising still remains with the client.
Advertising agencies have come a long way since it started around 1840 when a number of people that worked as commercial agents sold space from the newspaper. Although there was very little emphasis regarding media schedule or advertising planning in the beginning it somehow paved the way for the kind of services advertising agencies provide today.
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