The Role of Advertising Agencies

Knowing the role of advertising agencies in your business is crucial. These days advertisers and marketers are spoilt for choice for advertising agencies, so how do you know which advertising agency is right for you?

There is, at hand, a range of advertising agencies and advertising services to benefit, just about, any business or non-profit.

 
In this blog, we take a non-partisan look at:

• The types of advertising agencies

• The services advertising agencies may provide, including:

1. Strategy planning and development

2. Research

3. Brand campaign and development

4. Media planning

5. Advertising production

6. Testing and measurement

The types of advertising agencies

When advertising agencies first came on the scene, they were most often a group of individuals with the sole aim of selling space in periodicals from which they received a commission.

Then the more enterprising of those salesmen (they were nearly all men) provided a further incentive by offering to produce creative content to fill that space. Often that meant special writers (copywriters) and artists were being employed by the salesman to design and make the ads.

The advent of the modern advertising agency was with us and largely stayed that way in New Zealand until 1966, when a small boat slipped its mooring and fled out to the Hauraki Gulf and started broadcasting as Radio Hauraki. That turned the agency-world upside down.

It meant that with more media choices, media selection became a specialist craft rather than a function of the account executive whose previous options were mainly restricted to government television, government radio, the Listener (for a time), or whichever newspaper best reflected the desired demographic.

The range of services advertising agencies offered expanded exponentially. Even so, the advertising agencies back then bear little resemblance to today’s advertising agencies.

Today, you can have a bespoke advertising agency to fit your exact needs. They range from full-service agencies, often but not always large and global, to smaller companies such as those specialising in digital media, social media, creative boutiques, or media buying.

Each has a role. How to select which you need and which type of agency suits you best warrants another blog – and it will get one.

But let’s look at the roles full-service agencies can offer because that’s what Partisan offers—and, no, we are neither large nor global. You’ll remember that we listed those roles above. But what do they mean?

1. Strategy planning and development

A properly constituted advertising agency can pay real dividends for you here. Few advertising campaigns can be successful if they don’t have a prescribed strategy. That strategy should include brand positioning, brand equity (the attributes you wish to ascribe to your brand), point of difference, timing, and even price points. The fact is that none of these aspects should be constructed in isolation or governed by personal bias.

The real value of employing an agency to do the work for you is that they will approach the task from an unbiased point of view with the marketing knowledge, experience, and resources that augment and enhance your core role as a business.

2. Research

This service should perhaps come before strategy development because research into your market and perceived demographics will govern so much of your strategy. An advertising agency knows what it needs to know to construct a compelling and persuasive message for you.

Allow them to go out to the market for you. They know what questions to ask to enable them to do their job for you, and whilst they won’t necessarily do the research themselves (few agencies do), they will know which research companies to employ and what questions to ask to get the information they and you need to know before creating a campaign.

3. Brand campaign and development

It’s a staple of advertising agencies. That is not to diminish the other services a full-service advertising agency offers, but creating the brand and building a campaign around it is what an advertising agency does best—it’s also the exciting part. And here is a little Partisan secret for you that most advertising agencies won’t tell you—you must be involved in that process.

You have a role to play working with the agency, particularly the creative team, that crafts a compelling message reflecting the values and aspirations you have for your product or service. Get yourself an agency that makes you part of the team. Your involvement will enhance the campaign, and—believe us—you’ll have a lot of fun.

4. Media Planning

A good media planner can take all the guesswork out of media planning and help you choose where to advertise so that you get the biggest return for your buck which can be the difference between winning and losing.

And that's the role of a media planner. They can help you make better choices that are tailored to your business, and to your budget. A good one will make you question your current assumptions about locations, sizes, and frequency. It might even mean that you don't run traditional advertising for a while if it isn't the most economical option. This is true whether you're spending $1,000 or $100,000.

5. Advertising production

This is the sweatshop of the advertising agency world. And we don’t mean that in a derogatory manner. It’s simply the part of the process where a good agency, armed with a clear visionary strategy, research, resources, and experience, will hunker down and get those ads and other messaging done and out.

It’s also the part of the process that you need to allow your agency the freedom to get on with the job. All the strategising, research, and brainstorming (all of which, as we said, should involve you) has been done at this point; now is the time to allow the agency to get on with their job… and deliver.

6. Testing and measurement

How successful was the campaign? There are many ways to measure that. The most obvious are product sales or service uptake, and you might be satisfied with just the in-house figures you are getting.

But one question remains unanswered: could you have done better? And that is why ongoing testing is essential for the agency and you. It enables the campaign and the core message to be adapted, nuanced, and optimised. But it’ll happen only if you have your agency find out what’s going on out there.

I’ll give you an example. I have a son who, as a toddler, was the sole performer in a 60 second TV commercial for a wallpaper company. He became famous. He was recognised and stopped on the street. Everybody knew the ad or had seen the ad. The problem was that all those people attributed the ad to the wrong brand! “Are you the little boy in the Ashley Wallpaper commercial?” they asked–“No,” was the reply.

The ad was for Vision Wallpaper. The market leader (Ashley Wallpaper), not the brand my son was helping promote, was taking all the kudos–and sales. Measurement and testing would have picked that up; it’s a wise investment, and your agency should be amenable to it. Accountability is the key.

There are other things an agency can do for you. A good agency, anyway. But if you are looking to optimise and get the best benefit from your advertising agency, think about this—maybe the best role they can have is to be part of your team and for you to be part of theirs: to develop a partnership where common goals and communication are frequent and fundamental. You and your agency are onto a winner if you get that going.

What's Your Advertising Budget?

Everyone has an advertising budget, even if they spend all of it or not.

Advertising agencies, corporates with a big advertising budget, small businesses with a reasonable advertising budget, and even your wanna-be influencer friend who buys branded everything because it’s within their budget, advertise.

Adding our good old friend, the Internet, we’re constantly bombarded with messages about what to buy and where to buy them – and if you’re as high-strung as I am, you tend to plan your life out to the T (or at least try). I think any reasonable person often has a budget they work with – whether you’re responsible for it or not is an entirely different topic.

For example, I have a grocery budget (like many people)! What I can and cannot purchase will depend on that budget – and sometimes, that budget can even increase or decrease, depending on other factors. This begs me to ask; WHAT’S THE BUDGET?

Advertising is not everyone’s game – but so is every other work that requires expertise to provide. Let’s say your watch broke and you need a new one, but you can only spare $300 for it; you know not to go shopping at any luxury stores. In the same way, when you have $50,000, you’re more likely to be able to afford a watch that represents status as well as tells time.

I know that anything that has to do with money is a tricky conversation to have. Whether that’s asking a bank for a loan or getting quotes from different companies – people tend to shy away from disclosing what their budget is. I understand that people tend to gravitate towards either the cheapest option or the option with the best value these days. However, as a company that supplies services to clients – it’s critical for us to know what your actual budget is.

In saying that, here are four reasons why you should disclose your budget to an advertising agency:

1. It gives us a better idea of how to provide (and deliver) your advertising requirement.

2. Knowing your budget saves both parties’ TIME – the most precious resource we have in life.

3. It streamlines the process of finding the right solution to your problem.

4. You’ll find that disclosing your budget for every project produces the best value from your advertising.

By now, people should be aware that they will always get what they pay for – but in terms of advertising, you will always be better off telling us what your budget is. I know that there’s a whole heap of trust involved when it comes to spending money, but advertising should always be looked at as an investment rather than an expense. Advertising is an art of persuasion. When you trust your advertising agency, they will work hard for you to get value out of your spending, but most importantly, they will lay out a plan to use your budget to create revenue for your business.

 Now tell me, what’s your budget?

ANZ Bank – We Do How

ANZ bank has been pushing their latest advertising campaign, “We do how”, for quite some time now.

As is the norm for the banking sector, ANZ is still advertising the usual bank offerings. There’s nothing new on offer that you can’t get with any other bank. The campaign is fairly good as far as banking advertising goes, and like all banks, it’s backed by a mega budget.

The characters in the campaign, the Sharma family, are fairly likeable. We have Ravi; the “trying-too-hard-hero-dad”, Claire; the token mother, and Sameer and Tara; the prop-like children. The variations of the theme are clever in the series of ads they’ve made, which blend together nicely.

However, their singular pay-off line in the advert below makes me cringe: “See how ANZ could help you pay off your home loan faster”. As a homeowner, I’m really into the concept of paying off our mortgage as fast as possible. The idea of paying vast amounts of interest to tyrannical banks has no appeal to me and I want to be out of our black hole of debt as quickly as possible.

The depressing part of this commercial is that ANZ clearly shows that our characters have had a mortgage since January 2000, and now, 22 years later, they still owe $47,360. 22 Years in debt is already a very long time.

What’s far worse in this advertisement is that ANZ’s claim is frivolous and that’s because one word sticks out of their payoff line: “See how ANZ could help you pay off your home loan faster”. Yes, they could help you, but will they, and how? How can ANZ advertise such a vague, variable service in such a way? It’s all puffery. I can’t even say they’ve used some smoke and mirrors trickery here – they’ve just weaselled out of their service offering by claiming that they might be able to help.

If the Sharma family have been in debt for 22 years, how is ANZ making their mortgage go “out the door” any faster? And most importantly, what benefits are there for consumers to move from one faceless banking institution to another? If all they can offer are low mortgage rates then how long will it take for other banks to match them?

What would have happened if ANZ and their advertising agency, TBWA NZ, used a more persuasive word that drives action, like “will”? What if ANZ had instead said, “See how ANZ will help you pay off your home loan faster”? What would the response have been from consumers and would they switch to ANZ?

One word can make all the difference, especially in advertising.

Media Space Versus Creative – Who Wins?

The creative work of advertising agencies is more important than media space.

Media space is the exact same 30 seconds of wasted time that it was 30 seconds ago. Media is static, boring, unchallenging, and interruptive. Media is nothing without a creative message, especially if the creativity asks for permission to communicate with consumers.

Here are ten pros and cons of media and creativity:

1. Con: Media is just a space, and there’s too much space, meaning media is no longer valuable or scarce. Please tell me, where can’t I advertise?

2. Pro: You can make heaps of cash through media commission throughout the lifetime of the campaign. Produce one ad and run it for a year and you’re rolling in it.

3. Con: You can’t make heaps of cash through creativity. Sorry.

4. Con: Creativity is a sliding scale and suffers from the “Jackson Pollock Curse”. What appeals to one person is a failure to many others.

5. Pro: Media doesn’t necessarily share creativity’s failures. The ads will still run if the client is happy to do so, even if consumers find the ads ineffective.

6. Con: Media measurement is mostly pointless. One hundred thousand people saw your ad three times during a six-month campaign – how many sales did you make?

7. Con: Don’t get me started on how media builds awareness. Awareness is masturbation.

8. Con: Media is an interruption. Who invited you into my life? People care that you have their permission to talk to them. Just because I have an Internet connection doesn’t mean you can bombard me with banner ads.

9. Con: If you’re spending big money on media, then creativity loses power. Think of Harvey Norman, Bunnings, and Mitre 10, all not known for creative excellence.

10. Pro: Creativity is unbridled, powerful, and can be life-altering and immense.

A lot more cons than pros. In most circumstances, people do not care about the place but only about the content. No one stands outside the Louvre to say they stood outside the Louvre. They stand for hours outside the Louvre so they can say they finally got in and saw the Mona Lisa or the Venus de Milo. I’ll admit that not every gallery is as amazing as the Louvre, and obviously, not every piece of art is a Mona Lisa, but how many people want to stare at a blank wall?

Creativity wins.