It was the year 2016 and I had freshly graduated as a Computer Engineer. Up until then, my only association with the world of advertising had been, well the ‘ads themselves’.
I had no idea how the advertising industry worked or the kind of people who worked there. I was not even sure of what kind of work they did.
This all changed for me when I got my offer letter from MICA -India’s premier B-School for all things Advertising, Marketing, and Communications. (How a Computer Engineer ended up there is a story for another day).
The crazy world of Ad Agencies and Account Planners
In our classes at MICA, I was introduced to the ” The Ad Agency” and the “Account Planner”.
For someone who had dealt only with codes and bugs till now, this was an entirely new universe. I slowly got used to this universe though. This basically meant I had acquired the ability to use the advertising industry jargon.
It was an interesting field of study. I was in the business of creatively selling intangible value to smart people who were tired of cliches and interruptions.
I started getting more and more intrigued as I delved deeper into the advertising industry.
The real game-changer, however, was when I got offered an internship as an Account Planning Intern at Publicis Communications – one of the most widely recognized advertising agencies. It was a roller-coaster experience that ended up changing my perspective on a lot of things and introduced me to the working of a whole new world.
I thought it would be interesting to write about how the advertising industry operates and help others give some basic idea about what actually goes behind making an ad.
Maybe it can help you begin your own journey in the world of advertising.
What is an Advertising Agency and What does it do?
To start with, let me first give you an idea of what an agency actually is. There are multiple types of agencies such as advertising, media and digital to name a few.
I will be focusing on the Advertising agency.
Simply speaking, an Ad Agency solves Business Communication problems creatively.
Different companies and brands offer product or service solutions to their consumers’ everyday problems of life.
They are best at doing that which in technical terms is called core competence, but they might not always be good at telling the people about the amazing work that they do.
Hence they delegate that work – communicating the value that these products and services add to people’s lives- to different agencies since effective communication is the core competence of an agency.
Which are the Different Teams that work within an Ad Agency?
Now an advertising agency typically has three types of departments to provide strategic and creative solutions to their clients – the companies that have a business communication problem.
The first is client servicing whose job is basically to facilitate the entire process right from the client requiring agency services all the way to the agency delivering the required solution.
Then there is the Planning department whose job is to act as the voice of the consumer inside the agency and handle the strategy part of the solution.
Finally, there is the Creatives department whose job is to ensure that the strategic part of the solution is presented creatively to ensure the desired result.
Let’s understand each of them with an example.
I will give you a very simple example to help understand how these departments work. For the Game of Thrones fans, I’ve also attached a few images created by Chimp&z Inc, a Mumbai-based digital marketing company, to illustrate the character traits of the people that work in these teams.
Suppose the car company Skoda wants to launch a new car. They know it’s an amazing car with beautiful design and great features and they also have a fair idea of the people they want to sell it to.
They now want to tell their desired customers, which in technical terms is called the Target Audience, about this new car and its brilliant features. Now, this constitutes a business communication problem and hence they decide to approach an advertising agency.
The Client Servicing Team
The brand manager or the marketing manager of Skoda will first contact the client servicing guy of the agency.
The objective here is to have a clear understanding of the one or many objectives that Skoda wants to achieve and gather all the information that can help in understanding those objectives better.
So Skoda will hand over something called a ‘Client Brief’ which is a document that systematically explains those things. This will then be handed over to the Planning team.
The Planning Team
Now, this is where the actual solution strategy is discovered.
The planner will conduct his research, understand the company as well as customer context, identify the cultural trends, identify the consumer needs and desires. In addition to that, he will also do a whole lot of other things to develop a foundation of the business solution strategy. This is an iterative and an incremental process.
So in the case of Skoda, a planner identifies the consumer insight – which is basically the underlying reason why the target consumers would consider buying the new car by Skoda.
The planner will then make a ‘Creative Brief’ which is a document that systematically explains the strategy and the foundation bit of the business communication solution.
This Creative Brief is then handed over to the ‘Creatives Department’.
The Creative Team
This is the department which creates the magic, literally.
Building on the solution strategy provided by the planners, the creative team takes leaps of imagination to bring the strategy blueprint to life.
They decide the cast, location, props, music, colors, and thousands of other things that would actually constitute a visual piece of communication.
There are two main roles you need to know.
One is the copywriter who decides the actual text – which is called a copy, to be shown or narrated in the final advertisement. The other one is the Creative Director who is basically the architect of the entire creative endeavor.
The creatives team uses their experience and imagination to visualize different ways in which the core communication can be presented to the target audience to create maximum impact.
Throughout this process, the client servicing team helps in facilitating the information flow between the agency and the client making sure that deadlines are maintained, the workflow is smooth and both the clients and the agency are on the same page.
Some agencies like Lowe Lintas are planner centric which means that they emphasize more on strategic solutions while other agencies like Ogilvy are creative centric where there is more emphasis on creative appeal.
Conclusion
Well, there it is. A very basic inside peek into the fascinating world of advertising.
In reality, there are many other important details and processes that happen before a final ad comes out. For instance, things like media distribution plan and success measurement, to name a couple. This is just a simple explanation and an overview for novices.
I hope this guide helps other freshers la sense of what an advertising agency does and helps them understand how different parts work in tandem to create a beautiful piece of communication.
Disclaimer: None of the images used are mine. They are taken from Google and all due credits given to the original creator. They are simply used for the purpose of education.
