Description:
An advertising agency is typically a large company that can augment your marketing team. A good agency can provide strategies based on key data points, provide brand direction and implementation. They work best at executing huge projects with many moving parts. An ad agency typically has 30 – 100 creative hands to call upon at and have the capacity to service 20+ large accounts at any one time. They are ideal for large capital companies.
The Ad Agency Benefits:
Ad agencies are great for companies who have huge projects with huge demands with huge budgets. They are best at big picture positioning ie. establishing your brand presence and extending this to any conceivable platform imaginable. They are generally very adaptive. If you’re not happy with how your account is being handled, they can plug someone else in before you can snap your fingers. They are generally very dependable. Your talent won’t disappear on you leaving you with an incomplete project. They are also great for sourcing very specialized talent for one off projects never been done before.
Lately, many of the larger agencies have been focusing more on video content activations. So, if your looking to grow by attracting the attention of new markets in a big way, an agency could work well for you.
The Ad Agency Drawbacks:
Without huge budgets, much of their talent is inaccessible. Some try to package them selves as a one stop shop for your creative needs, but like any other large organization, they can get bogged down by internal disagreements and cumbersome reporting processes (ie. one person doing the work and 3 managers overseeing it). This all increases the costs to you. Big company’s, big egos. Some of your ideas may meet resistance because your ideas may not align with their vision for your company as it relates to their portfolio of clientele. With a process involving a few middle-people the potential for broken telephone is slightly higher. You may spin your wheels more with rounds of revisions adding to the cost.
Next up… Spec work, contests, crowd sourcing & design mills
