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Account Service Department: Account Servicing Account Planning Media

There are 6 main departments in most advertising agencies: account servicing, account planning, media, creative, production, and finance/accounting. The account servicing department acts as the liaison between the agency and its clients. The media department develops cost-effective media plans to reach target audiences. The creative department is responsible for creating advertisements and executing creative concepts. The production department oversees finishing and producing final advertisements. Finally, the finance/accounting department manages the agency's business operations and accounts.

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102 views6 pages

Account Service Department: Account Servicing Account Planning Media

There are 6 main departments in most advertising agencies: account servicing, account planning, media, creative, production, and finance/accounting. The account servicing department acts as the liaison between the agency and its clients. The media department develops cost-effective media plans to reach target audiences. The creative department is responsible for creating advertisements and executing creative concepts. The production department oversees finishing and producing final advertisements. Finally, the finance/accounting department manages the agency's business operations and accounts.

Uploaded by

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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Broadly there are 6 departments in any advertising agency

Account Servicing

Account Planning

Media

Creative

Production

Finance and Accounting

Account service department


The account service, or the account management department, is the link between the ad agency
and its clients. Depending upon the size of the account and its advertising budget one or two
account executives serve as liason to the client. The account executives job requires high degree
of diplomacy and tact as misunderstanding may lead to loss of an account. The account executive
is mainly responsible to gain knowledge about the clients business, profit goals, marketing
problems and advertising objectives.
The account executive is responsible for getting approved the media schedules, budgets and
rough ads or story boards from the client. The next task is to make sure that the agency personnel
produce the advertising to the clients satisfaction. The biggest role of the account executive is
keeping the agency ahead of the client through follow-up and communications.
Media department
The responsibility of the agencys media department is to develop a media plan to reach the
target audience effectively in a cost effective manner. The staff analyses, selects and contracts for
media time or space that will be used to deliver the ad message. This is one of the most important
decisions since a significantly large part of the clients money is spent on the media time and/or
space. The media department has acquired increasing importance in an agencys business as large
advertisers seem to be more inclined to consolidate media buying with one or few agencies
thereby saving money and improving media efficiency.
Creative department
To a large extent, the success of an ad agency depends upon the creative department responsible
for the creation and execution of the advertisements. The creative specialists are known as
copywriters. They are the ones who conceive ideas for the ads and write the headlines, subheads
and the body copy. They are also involved in deciding the basic theme of the advertising

campaign, and often they do prepare the rough layout of the print ad or the commercial story
board.
Creation of an ad is the responsibility of the copywriters and the art department decides how the
ad should look.
Production department
After the completion and approval of the copy and the illustrations the ad is sent to the
production department. Generally agencies do not actually produce the finished ads; instead they
hire printers, photographers, engravers, typographers and others to complete the finished ad. For
the production of the approved TV commercial, the production department may supervise the
casting of actors to appear in the ad, the setting for scenes and selecting an independent
production studio. The production department sometimes hires an outside director to transform
the creative concept to a commercial.
Finance and accounting department
An advertising agency is in the business of providing services and must be managed that way.
Thus, it has to perform various functions such as accounting, finance, human resources etc. it
must also attempt to generate new business. Also this department is important since bulk of the
agencys income approx. 65% goes as salary and benefits to the employees.

Forms of Advertising
1.Institutional Advertising:
This advertising speaks about an organizations corporate image.

2.Brand advertising:
This advertising helps in the long-term build up of a brand.

Evaluating Advertising Effectiveness


Good planning and control of advertising depends on measures of advertising effectiveness. Most of the money is
spent by agencies on pre-testing ads, and much less is spent on evaluating their effectiveness. Most advertisers try to
measure the communication effect of an ad that is, its potential effect on awareness, knowledge, or preference.
They would also like to measure the ads sales effect.
Communication effect research:

It seeks to determine whether an ad is communicating effectively. Called copy testing, it can be


done before an ad is put into media and after it is printed or broadcasted. There are three major
methods of advertising pre-testing:

Direct rating method:

In this case, the consumers are asked to rate the alternative ads. These ratings are used to
evaluate the ads.

Portfolio tests:
Here, the consumers are asked to view or listen to a portfolio of advertisements, taking as much
as time as they need. Consumers are then asked to recall all the ads and their content, aided or
unaided by the interviewer.

Laboratory tests:
It uses equipment to measure the physiological reactions heartbeat, blood pressure, pupil
dilation, perspiration to an ad. These tests measure attention getting power but reveal nothing
about the impact on beliefs, attitudes, or intensions.

Sales effect research:


Advertisings sales effect is generally difficult to measure than its communication effect. This is
mainly because the sales are influenced by many other factors, such as the product features,
price, availability, as well as the competitors actions. Companies are generally interested in
finding out whether they are overspending or under spending on advertising.
Researchers try to measure the sales impact through analyzing either historical or experimental
data

Communication Objective in Advertising


A mediocre advertising message properly directed stands more chance of success than the most professionally
developed ad campaign directed at the wrong audience or using unsuitable message appeals.
Advertising creates its most powerful impact when it is used to solve narrowly defined communication objectives.

Advertising communication objectives can be put in a pyramid form. The lower level objectives
are awareness, knowledge or comprehension. These are accomplished first. Subsequent
objectives may focus on moving prospects to higher levels in the pyramid to elicit desired
behavioral responses such as associating feelings with the brand, trial or regular use etc. It is
easier to accomplish objectives located at the base of the pyramid than the ones toward the top.
The percentage of prospective customers will decline as they move up the pyramid towards more
action oriented objectives, such as regular brand use, etc.
Irrespective of the fact whether the brand is new or established, the pyramid can be used to
determine appropriate advertising objectives. What is required is to determine where the target
audience lies with respect to various levels in the pyramid. If the level of brand awareness or
knowledge of its features or benefits is low, the advertising communication should be to increase

them. In case the brand liking and preference is low, then the appropriate goal can be to change
the target audiences image of the brand

Full service agency


The function of an advertising agency is to see to it that its clients advertising leads
to greater profits in the long run than could be achieved without the ad agency.
Most such agencies are large in size and offer their clients a full range of services in
the area of marketing, communications and promotions. These include planning,
creating and producing the advertisement, media selection and research. Other
services offered include strategic marketing planning, sales training, package
design, sales promotion, event management, trade shows, publicity and public
relations.
The full service agency is composed of various departments; each is responsible to provide required inputs to
perform various functions to serve the client.

Functions of an Advertising Agency


Big agencies such as HTA, Lowe, O&M are called full service agencies because they are ONE
STOP SHOP for all services that are offered to the clients. Todays agencies are providing total
communications packages for the clients brands. They are acting as the custodians of the client
brands.
CLIENT SERVICING
Also called account executives. Acts as the link between the agency and the client. He suggests
what the client exactly wants to his ad agency. He is the person who carries the client brief and is
also responsible for the approvals.
CREATIVE DEPARTMENT
Under the creative director are a team of copywriters and visualisers who arrive at the big idea.
Accordingly the storyboard is prepared and scriptwork is done. The final layout is sent for
approval to the client.
PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT
The production department is responsible to convert the storyboard into a finished layout if its
for print medium or Outdoor. However the TVC will be outsourced to a production house (eg.
Prasoon Pandeys HIGHLIGHT FILMS). The final storyboard is made into a technical
storyboard before it is sent for shooting.
MEDIA DEPARTMENT
The Media Planner along with Media manager and brand manager of the client prepares the final
media budget and purchases insertions for print media (space buying) or purchases radio spots or
purchases TV time if its on television. Appropriate media mix is developed.

RESEARCH DEPARTMENT
In fact research department functions before and after a commercial is made for pre-testing and
post-testing of media respectively. Consumer insights and brand usages are also tested at times,
according to client in many instances.
FINANCE DEPARTMENT
This department looks after the accounts (financial records) for the agency.

USP:
The Unique Selling Proposition (also Unique Selling Point or USP) is
a marketing concept that was first proposed as a theory to explain a
pattern among successful advertising campaigns of the early 1940s. It
states that such campaigns made unique propositions to the customer
and that this convinced them to switch brands. The term was invented
by Rosser Reeves of Ted Bates & Company. Today the term is used in
other fields or just casually to refer to any aspect of an object that
differentiates it from similar objects.
A number of businesses currently use USPs as a basis for their
marketing campaigns.
Contents
[hide]

1 Definition
2 Examples
3 References
4 See also

[edit]Definition

In Reality in Advertising (Reeves 1961, pp. 4648) Reeves laments that


the U.S.P. is widely misunderstood and gives a precise definition in three
parts:
1. Each advertisement must make a proposition to the consumer. Not
just words, not just product puffery, not just show-window

advertising. Each advertisement must say to each reader: "Buy


this product, and you will get this specific benefit."
2. The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or
does not, offer. It must be uniqueeither a uniqueness of the
brand or a claim not otherwise made in that particular field of
advertising.
3. The proposition must be so strong that it can move the mass
millions, i.e., pull over new customers to your product.
[edit]Examples
Some good current examples of products with a clear USP are:
Head & Shoulders: "You get rid of dandruff"

Some unique propositions that were pioneers when they were


introduced:

Domino's Pizza: "You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in
30 minutes or less -- or it's free."

FedEx: "When your package absolutely, positively has to get there


overnight"
M&M's: "Melts in your mouth, not in your hand"

Wonder Bread: "Wonder Bread Helps Build Strong Bodies 12


Ways"

[edit]

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