Advertising – MCM‐501 VU
LESSON 10
ADVERTISING AGENCY
Advertising agency is a firm that creates new promotional ideas, designs print, radio, television, and internet
advertisements, books advertisement space and time, plans and conducts advertising campaigns,
commissions research and surveys, and provides other such services that help a client in entering and
succeeding in a chosen market.
An advertising agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising (and
sometimes other forms of promotion) for its clients. An advertising agency is a service business dedicated
to creating, planning and handling advertising (and sometimes other forms of promotion) for its clients.
An Advertising Agency or ad agency is a service provider that works for clients to create an effective, goal
oriented ad Campaign.
According to American Association of Advertising
“An advertising agency is an independent organization of creative people and business people who
specialize in developing and preparing market plans, advertisements, and other promotional tools”.
Origin of advertising agency
Early Advertisng Agents
They were selling agents for newspapers, receiving commission for those newspapers on the amount of
advertising space they could sell to advertisers. Often they would act as media brokers by buying space in
quantity and then retailing it to advertisers in smaller portions, their income come from media. These early
agents soon discovered that it was easier to sell the space if they offered to show the advertiser how the
space could be filled that is to design the advertisement and to write the copy.
This rapidly grew to a stage in which the agent from being a one man all-rounder started to employ
specialist writers, designers and at later stage media buyers and production executives The first
acknowledged advertising agency was William Taylor in 1786. Another early agency started by James 'Jem'
White in Fleet Street, London, in 1800, eventually evolved into White Bull Holmes, a recruitment
advertising agency, that went out of business in the late 1980s. An advertising agency developed during
1920s and 1930s some famous advertising themes emerged: they became famous for two reasons
• First originality
• They were used constantly for a long period of time
Evolution of advertising agency
The period between 1920s and 1940 was largely of creative advertising. An era in which flamboyant
personalities who ran their agencies in an automatic manner, generated campaigns of great originality, style,
panache and memorability. More significant developments were underway in the 1950s with the emergence
of larger agencies, heavily influenced by America.
Big agencies like young and Rubicam, the London Press Exchange, J Walter Thompson, McCann Erickson,
Erwin Wasey and others built up substantial marketing and research departments. These departments not
only conducted research into what the advertising task was but also started to become closely involved with
the clients’ own plans for developing and marketing new products.
During 1950s companies like A C Nielson, Attwood and little later on AGB were able to provide highly
detailed pictures of consumers’ daily activities in purchasing goods, and in the effect advertising had in
influencing their choice. Advertising agency had over the course of 20 or 30 years become a more
professional organization, relying more on professional research and marketing techniques, carrying a
greater sense of ethical and moral responsibility.
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Advertising – MCM‐501 VU
TV & Radio ADS
At the same time almost exploding with new bursts of creativity as the new medium of television changed
the whole scene. Radio advertising started to offer commercial opportunities but its real progress came later
in 1980s.
Cinema advertising
Cinema advertising also provided agencies with immense creative opportunities during the 1950s but its
audience was rapidly affected by the advent of television. The late 1980s saw a considerable revival of
cinema advertising. In 1960s fresh spark of creativity seemed to light up the London agency scene.
Marketing and research techniques was lifted by a new generation of young creative advertising people
seeking more exciting ways of communicating in a competitive world; companies like Saatchi &Saatchi and
Kirkwood were [Link] of the creative influence found an important new way of giving expression
to itself through the development of Media Brokers.
Media Brokers (companies who performed all the media planning, buying and checking work previously
done by an advertising agency). This enabled creative people to start their own agencies more easily. The
media buying responsibilities and financial risks were passed to media brokers who received part of the
commission. The fledging agency was able to concentrate its energies on the true and final product of any
advertising agency- the advertisements themselves. Many agencies started on this basis- companies like
WCRS, Gold Greenless Trott, Bartle Bogle and Hegarty etc.
Early 1980s
With the competitive business atmosphere a number of monopoly procedures were broken down. Among
these was the rigid commission system, by which advertising agencies were not allowed to pass back any
commission received from the media to their clients.
1990s
1990s saw the development of the international full service agency providing a one stop solution to global
clients’ communication needs. The increased attention given by clients to integrated marketing
communications and international communications lead to the development of global communication
companies. Many were built through the process of acquiring smaller specialist agencies. The largest agency
of its kind is the WPP group. The world’s top 10 advertising organizations now command over a third of
the world’s advertising revenues.
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