Do You Really Need an Ad Agency?
Why do global companies with large workforces and separate marketing & brand team (or even in-house creative team) hire an ad agency? Couldn’t they save money by hiring their own team and creating ads on their own?
As a business person working for many years, you are most likely to have many great marketing ideas about how to reach potential customers and tell them what you do – after all, you know your business better than anyone else. BUT, IS THAT THE BEST USE OF YOUR TIME?
It’s always challenging to make the most of your time. Many a time, it is not practical to spend your time away from the day-to-day operation of your core business. But, at the same time, can you really ignore marketing and advertising for your products and brands? Then, where do you start? Or what if you aren’t a creative thinker? Or, what if you just don’t have the time to plan and implement a campaign?
That’s why you need an ad agency as a partner to execute well-thought-out campaigns that are timely, properly implemented and help you to reach your potential customers.
An ad agency is a professional service provider that develops and administers advertising campaigns for businesses of all sizes, across media, traditional and new-age. They purchase advertising spaces and time in various media on behalf of their clients. They can act as a full-service agency, handling a campaign at every step, or they can perform project work on a specific portion of a campaign.
THE RATIONALE
An ad agency isn’t owned by the advertiser, the media, or the supplier. Hence, it can bring an external objective viewpoint to the advertiser’s business – a state the advertiser can never attain. An outside agency is able to provide a fresh, complete outlook on your business and then apply their knowledge and experience to develop an image that resonates throughout all facets of your business. This valuable insight contributes to the overall effectiveness of your advertising plan.
At the same time, an agency can cater to its clients’ needs because of its daily exposure to a broad spectrum of marketing problems from different industries and learnings from past experience while handling the same or similar situations. They offer a breadth of knowledge from a variety of industries. These collective experiences offer unique insights to address your marketing goals from an important perspective.
Selecting a reputed ad agency with a team structure ensures that your advertising campaigns will be developed and administered by the elite team. Organized ad agencies have a team structure with specialized skills to work with your brand team. Good agencies hire the best of the best, and their specialist skills are sharpened further by focusing solely on developing and maintaining advertising campaigns for a wide range of clients.
WHY OUTSOURCE TO AN AD AGENCY?
Professional ad agency employs a combination of creative and business people which includes creative directors, concept writers, strategic planners, marketing executives, media analysts, media planners, digital experts, public relationship specialists, accountants, art visualizers, illustrators and graphic artists, etc.
Established advertising agencies also have a wealth of industry contacts and relationships from which to pull when putting your advertising campaign into action. Agencies typically have established relationships with professional photographers, cinematographers, film directors, animation artists, sound and recording artists, printing houses, local, regional and national media, and independent publishers. These relationships may have taken years to cultivate, giving the ad agency a remarkable advantage over in-house marketing departments.
Even when it comes to the production of TV commercials, not all directors can deliver a similar output depending upon their expertise, similar to the movie industry where different directors are known for their genres of work in romance, action, comedy, thriller, sci-fi, adventure, etc. The same is true for ad filmmakers as well – some are experts with emotional content while others can deliver good results with fun, comedy and a slice of life content. Hence the ad film director has to be chosen carefully to bring the best results for the brand objective as it involves a significant investment.
A full-service agency also provides media planning & buying services by researching, negotiating and contracting for commercial space and time with the various print, electronic and digital media as per your brand & campaign requirements. Because of media expertise, an agency can help to develop effective media & public relations campaigns for your company, saving time and money. As they have the expertise of working for multiple categories or brands with similar target audiences, they can optimize your media plan for effective results by bringing the best practices.
Generally, agencies like to work closely with your team throughout the campaign development process, ensuring that the brand owner is satisfied with their campaign from start to finish and in line with their business objective. The agency would like to know about your business, your product offerings and your company culture, before crafting a campaign that effectively conveys the uniqueness and value of your brand. It is the job of an agency to understand clients’ audiences and reach them more efficiently. Please understand that all professionally managed ad agencies are morally and ethically committed to your business and your brands. The agency teams are always passionate about creating popular culture, practices and beliefs with their campaigns produced for the brand as that also has a direct implication on their professional career.
Hiring an ad agency can be a good start to accomplishing your business goals. They can help to establish a consistent brand image by creating awareness for your product or service, eventually increasing your sales. But it is important that you are compatible with them, so try to find the best fit for you and your company. The relationship between you and your agency is the key to building a lasting, successful partnership, which will help you in achieving your business ambition.
Mr. Ujaya Shakya is the founder and managing director of Outreach Nepal and the author of Brandsutra.
