THE

THE VIEW
VIEW
FROM 20,000 FEET
EVERY JOB HAS and every company has a
context within its industry

A CONTEXT young account managers to understand

what services an agency provides, how

WITHIN AN
the agency is organized to deliver those
services, how an agency is compensated,
and, in broad strokes, what an account
ORGANIZATION manager does.
 Advertising and public relations (PR)
agencies have been around since the
late 1800s.

EVOLUTION
Advertising Agency
They are organized, staffed, and managed to
serve the marketing communications needs
of clients with whom they have an ongoing
working project relationship
The work done by agencies is part of a long-
term, coordinated effort to build brand
awareness, change a client’s image,
stimulate sales, or accomplish a myriad of
other marketing communications objectives.
To serve the communication needs of its client,
to make money doing so, and to grow as a
result of its success
Traditional creative services in measured
media still account for the majority of agency
billings, but this is changing
Successful agencies are eager to provide, or at
least manage, other communication services
such as sales promotion, interactive, PR,
branding /graphic design, direct response,
events, and multimedia sales presentations

- Agency Mission -
 A
LITTLE
History For many years, advertising
agencies called themselves
“full service.”

The agencies believed they were offering all

the communication services their clients
needed. the agency was offering creative,
production, and media-buying services
 IN-HOUSE
Department
Many advertisers still maintain large in-house
staffs for work they do not want

11 The decentralization
of authority on the
client side. While 22
brand or ad managers
had responsibility for
branding ad
campaigns,
Cost-effective to
have an ongoing
department 33
dedicated to
pumping out these
materials plus other
related collateral
some sales
managers and PR
directors did not
always agree with
the direction of the
branding campaigns
 The
Boutique Big-time branding agencies, however,
wanted nothing to do with these

Explosion minutiae-ladened disciplines

For the big-time agencies who wanted to do

multimillion dollar television image campaigns,
sales promotions required too much time, too
much work, not enough profit, and not enough
opportunity to do “showcase creative” work

The success of the creative boutiques, media

buying services, and sales promotion
agencies was followed by the emergence of
large national public relations agencies and
then digital agencies
 A
WAKE-UP
Call The availability of specialty shops
gave brand managers even more
choices over the so-called full-
service agency of the day

many agencies lost accounts when the brand

managers decided to hire a group of specialty
agencies and coordinate the communication
program themselves; not a good thing for the
mainstream agency business
 THE IMPACT
Client Consolidation
While mergers and acquisitions sometimes
actually mean increased revenue and profits,
they also mean more central control of
marketing
Central control means more advertising dollars
controlled by fewer companies who are—no
surprise—driven to cut costs and increase
market share
the big agencies saw the light. They changed
their tune, their pricing, and the way they
serviced clients
 TWO
Fundamental Changes
Broader
Communication
1 Services
They had to broaden their service
portfolio so clients could get
everything they wanted in one stop

A CHANGE IN
COMPENSATION 2
The second big change in the agency
business was the way agencies
charged for services
 FIRST
Broader Service
This new agency model made it easier for clients to
manage message consistency across multiple
media vehicles in the promotional mix
An audience that once could be reached
effectively through mainstream, measured media
now requires a more sophisticated mix of message
vehicles.
The new agency model is more full service and
integrated than ever before.
Large agency groups are finding more and more of
their income coming from what they call “below
the line” services
 SECOND
Change Compensation
Pricing strategy is a competitive tactic used by
many business categories, but it was a new
and not-so-welcome concept in advertising
The commission system gave the agency 15
percent of every dollar placed for clients in
traditional measured media
It motivated agencies to find commissionable
media solutions to client problems rather than
possibly recommending other media and tools
which would not generate media commissions
 GROWTH
Fee System
Some agency compensation includes a bonus for
achieving or exceeding results having to do with
increases in brand awareness, the success of a
repositioning effort, or sales increases

Some agencies started offering to bill

prospective clients on a fee-for-service basis
rather than a 15 percent media commission

Acting more like a consultant is now the

paradigm in the business

The evolution in agency compensation

continues—with more performance based
compensation proposals being reported
 IMC
Become
REALITY
Agency accountability will continue to increase,
and clients will expect that their marketing
communications programs are more effectively
integrated and orchestrated

The agencies that are thriving and growing are

those that provide more services under one roof
and do a more effective and efficient job of
program integration

Media-buying services can get really good prices

on media because of their clout, but the client
still relies on their full-service agency for overall
strategic guidance and coordination
 Contemporary
ADVERTISING
Agencies The trend is toward a more full-service
marketing communications package which
can provide and coordinate all the services
needed by clients
Marketers need to communicate to a variety of
audiences, though communication might not
be a core skill
The advertising agency, as an organization
living in a changing environment, is
constantly evolving
This communication process continues to
become more complicated and more expensive
 Contemporary
ADVERTISING
Agencies
 Contemporary
ADVERTISING
Agencies
 Contemporary
ADVERTISING Account Service
Agencies Account managers are responsible for managing
the agency process of serving the client’s needs,
including strategic leadership and the building of
an excellent client-agency working relationship

This includes the quality of media planning

and creative work.

Management supervisors see all major

campaign work before it’s presented to
the client.

This ensures that they know about it and

they think it meets agency standards on
strategy, creative quality, and integration.
 Contemporary
ADVERTISING Account Supervisor/ Manager / Assistant
Agencies These are seasoned account service people who
may oversee the activities of two or three
account managers
Through the account manager and other members
of the agency team, they stay close enough to
know what is going on with each account

Account supervisors will often attend the less

frequent high-level meetings with the client and
can pinch hit for the account managers as needed
Assistant account managers get more
responsibilities for client contact, more responsibility
for working with the rest of the agency team on an
account, and more responsibility for the account
information management
 Contemporary
ADVERTISING
Agencies Account Coordinator
Account coordinators are the entry-level
position. They do all the little stuff for the
account manager
The normal time for an account coordinator
to advance to a full-fledged account manager
on a small account is one to two years

senior account managers do everything and

rely only upon a central clerical pool for
support.
 Contemporary
ADVERTISING
Agencies
Brand, Field and Service Office
In some large agencies with national retail,
automotive, fast food chain, or beverage
clients, there may also be small agency offices
around the country to serve the needs of local
franchises or dealer groups
 Contemporary Creative Department
ADVERTISING
Agencies Creative Director
The creative director is a seasoned creative
mind who is responsible for the creative output
of the agency
Most CDs were copywriters or designers earlier
in their careers and are normally excellent
concept thinkers

Depending on the culture of the agency, the CD

can ultimately dictate the concepts to be
presented to the client, even if the account
manager does not totally support them.
 Contemporary Creative Department
ADVERTISING
Agencies Art Director and Copywriter
The main value of copywriters is not writing copy,
but coming up with the overall concept for a
campaign embodied in a headline or tag line
The art directors are the visual folks. They can
bring an idea to life

Art directors are expected to be proficient in the

latest software programs for layout, image creation,
image modification, assembly, and production output
 Contemporary Creative Department
ADVERTISING
Agencies Creative Freelancer
The creative department can maintain an
affordable core staff for ongoing work and then
use freelancers as project volume increases or
specialists are needed

The important thing for the account manager

relative to creative freelancers is that the
creative work should be “seamless
 Contemporary Research, Planning and Analytics
ADVERTISING
Agencies Exploratory and Qualitative
Focus groups, product use observations, and in-
depth interviews are exploratory techniques
that probe opinions, feelings, and attitudes

These techniques are not meant to be

projectable to a large population, but the
information developed by exploratory research
often ends up as input in the creative process

These techniques are not meant to be

projectable to a large population
 Contemporary Research, Planning and Analytics
ADVERTISING
Agencies Quantitative Research
Projecting quantitative research to a large
population requires methods that measure
more people on consistent criteria

Phone surveys and mall intercepts are two

common methods used to study attitude, brand
awareness, product usage, and consideration sets

Quantitative research also involves the analysis of

data from Simmons, MRI, and other companies to
help build a profile of the target customer
 Contemporary Research, Planning and Analytics
ADVERTISING
Agencies Concept Testing
After preliminary creative work has been done,
it can be helpful to get some feedback

Concept or copy-testing techniques like focus

groups, perception analysis, account planner
panels, and online polls help provide a reaction
to campaign themes, headlines, layouts, copy,
offers, and so forth

Once motivational research has been translated

in to creative concepts, those concepts need to
be tested to see if they resonate with the target
audience
 Contemporary Research, Planning and Analytics
ADVERTISING
Agencies Audience Measure
Determining who uses what media and what
media delivers which audience is a key concern
of the media planner
This research often involves the analysis of
Simmons, MRI, Nielsen, and Arbitron media data
cross-referenced with product usage
information for the same sources
 Contemporary Research, Planning and Analytics
ADVERTISING
Agencies Performance
The effectiveness of individual ads and entire
campaigns is a chief concern of everyone
involved. Advertising performance is broken
into two main
 Contemporary Research, Planning and Analytics
ADVERTISING
Agencies Quality and Credibility
It must be high quality, which means it must be
relevant to communications objectives, be
actionable, and must be free of conflicts of
interest
The most common type of this outsourced
research is attitude and awareness tracking
studies plus pre- and post-campaign
evaluations
Advertising agencies often do some research
themselves. However, any research that
measures the success of the agency’s work is
performed by an outside research firm
 Contemporary Research, Planning and Analytics
ADVERTISING
Agencies Research Department
These people pored over Simmons tables,
cluster analyses, and the research done by
others in order to gain some new insight into the
target audience
These researchers loved numbers and tended to
deal in general conclusions about target
markets and audiences, plus conclusions they
drew from masses of demographic and
marketing data.
 Contemporary Research, Planning and Analytics
ADVERTISING
Agencies Analytics
The analytics department is where
communications metrics live. In combination
with the account manager and the client,
analytics specialists determine what results are
going to be measured and how the data will be
captured, analyzed, stored, and reported.
 Contemporary
ADVERTISING Media Department
Agencies There are now a number of approaches agencies
take to provide media planning and buying
services to their clients
The emergence of these mega-media specialty
agencies has been one of the most interesting
ad industry trends in the early years of the new
century

1 The clout of media-buying services put

downward pressure on the cost of media
and tended to make traditional media a
commodity item

the mega-media-buying services

created a new spark of creativity
within the advertising media industry
2
 Contemporary Media Department
ADVERTISING Media Director
Agencies Media director, who is typically the VP-level
contemporary of the creative director, director
of account services, and VP of production

Media directors oversee the work of media

planners and buyers, approve all media plans
before the plans go to the account manager,
and are personally involved in the negotiation
and placement of large media buys
 Contemporary Media Department
ADVERTISING Media Planner
Agencies Media planners, as the title indicates, do most of
the planning
Based on input provided in the campaign brief,
media planners develop the comprehensive
media plan. The plan includes recommendations
on target audiences, media selection, exposure
level, timing, and budget
The media planner is normally the one who will
do the initial cost negotiating with the media
The connection planner does for media what the account
planner does for creative; that is, to provide a list of
possible brand contact points (traditional and
nontraditional media) based on the lifestyles, attitudes,
and media preferences of the target audience.
 Contemporary Media Department
ADVERTISING Media Buying Service
Agencies The client will expect this arrangement to be
seamless and well-coordinated as if the creative
agency had a media department.

The account manager is responsible for the

seamless delivery of media services
 Contemporary Production and Traffic
ADVERTISING
Agencies Video Production Process
Effective video production is both
a business and an art
Agency may have an entire department
dedicated to video production with full-time
producers and coordinators specializing in
things like traffic and talent payments, or
agency may have a few skilled creatives and a
coordinator who helps out part-time
Account managers can avoid major amounts of
angst and anguish if they deal with broadcast
budget issues ahead of time
 Contemporary Production and Traffic
ADVERTISING
Agencies Print Production Process
Once the ad concept and layout have been approved,
preproduction specialists often take care of production
details such as the final typography and the cropping
and electronic preparation of the photos—whatever is
needed to get the project ready to send to the
publication or to the printer
Print producers do essentially the same thing as
broadcast producers, only they deal with magazine
and newspaper ads, outdoor boards, logo specialty
items, direct mail pieces—anything that is printed

The production and traffic people work with the

creative people, who actually select typefaces, line
up photo shoots, get illustrations created, and all
the other things needed to get a print piece done.
 Contemporary Production and Traffic
ADVERTISING
Agencies Traffic Managers
Traffic managers are the circulatory system of the
agency. They are the agency’s air traffic controllers
They often physically move the work from
department to department, paying attention to
all types of details
Traffic managers are responsible for knowing
the status of every job in the agency. Every
project has its own timeline, budget, approval
process, specifications, and peculiarities
Traffic managers do a tremendous amount of
juggling and negotiating behind the scenes with
producers, art directors, production artists, media
buyers, and even account managers so that the
most time-sensitive jobs get immediate attention.
 Contemporary Production and Traffic
ADVERTISING
Agencies Traffic Managers
Learn as much as you can about production so
you can anticipate problems yourself
Be relentless on proofing. If errors get through
to a completed job, the agency will often have
to pay for the redo
Make sure the production people see the
creative concepts before they are presented to
the client. The creative people will sometimes
come up with an idea that cannot be done
within the time constraints or budget
Don’t deal directly with production vendors
except when asked to by production and traffic
managers.
 Contemporary Digital and Interactive
ADVERTISING
Agencies The biggest single change in the agency has been the growth in
the digital/ interactive space. The major components of this
category of marketing communications now includes: • Website
development * Social media platforms and community
management * Opinion leader cultivation * Digital content
creation and distribution • Internet advertising strategies *
Media buying • E-mail strategy • Viral (think YouTube) • Search
engine optimization • Mobile
 Contemporary Digital and Interactive
ADVERTISING
Agencies Developers
Once the UI and UX have been described and
the site plan has been done, the technicians
take over
They will design a wireframe, which is a computer
generated, three-dimensional representation of
how all parts of the site are linked.
They start writing the code and implementing
the User Interface.
 Contemporary Digital and Interactive
ADVERTISING
Agencies Content and Programming
Online videos and highly-interactive, content-
driven sections of the site will be accomplished
by people who have extensive experience in
commercial production, film, animation, and
interactive graphics.
 Contemporary Below The Line
ADVERTISING
Agencies Public Relation
Provides communications services generally
characterized as non-advertising in nature. The
goal of public relations is to inform a target
audience and to get people to talk about a
subject important to the organization engaging
in the effort
A creative marketing PR idea that is in sync
with the advertising strategy can dramatically
increase the impact of an ad campaign
Social media is basically a public relations tactic
to get others to talk about the brand. As such,
management of social media activities often
reside in the PR department
 Contemporary Below The Line
ADVERTISING
Agencies Sale Promotion
Sales promotions (also known as brand promotions)
are activities which involve contests, sweepstakes,
incentives, on-pack coupons, in-store sampling
The kind of promotions we see as private citizens
are “consumer promotions,” designed to stimulate
retail sales. Co-promotions with other brands are
also handled by the agency’s sales promotion
department or a specialty agency
A “trade promotion,” is designed to stimulate support
among the dealers and distributors who carry the
product. These trade promotions involve contests,
prizes, incentives, co-op ad deals, and special pricing,
all designed to get the products more local ad support,
better shelf space, and better pass-thru savings during
the promotional period
 Contemporary Below The Line
ADVERTISING
Agencies Direct Response, Fulfilment, CRM
Direct response has increased its credibility as
a legitimate communication tool. Direct
response used to be considered junk mail and
infomercials. The use of information-rich
databases has changed that reputation

Fulfillment services mostly handle the assembly

and mailing of response materials and products

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a

specialty that combines direct response,
interactive, and telemarketing
 Contemporary Segment Specific
ADVERTISING
Agencies Sometimes called “urban” marketing agencies,
these firms can also have expertise in
marketing to East Indian, Asian, black, GLBTQ,
and youth audiences
Niche agencies can also define themselves by
an industry specialty such as health care,
technology, sports, or business-to-business
 Contemporary Retail
ADVERTISING
Agencies Research indicates that upward of 80 percent of
final buying decisions are not made until the
consumer is in the store
Agencies with retail departments focus on four
things on behalf of client brands sold through
retail chains:
1. Layout of branded spaces and product schematics 2. Fixtures
and fittings 3. In-store communications for the client’s brand 4.
Traditional advertising support for product launches and
seasonal promotions
 Contemporary Sport, Sponsor, Event Planning
ADVERTISING
Agencies Sales meetings, touring shows, trade-show
exhibits, concert sponsorships, athletic
endorsements, and other such activities are the
domain of this department
Close coordination of such agency
projects with the events team will
ensure that the right stuff gets to the
right place at the right time
 Contemporary Consulting and Strategic Planning
ADVERTISING
Agencies Some agencies are now into marketing
consulting and strategic planning, which
involves them at the highest levels of the client
marketing organization
One of the research techniques that
feeds the strategic planning process is
called futurism
Futurists try to predict what issues currently on
the fringe of society will become mainstream
and what impact they will have on the client’s
business.
 Contemporary Non-revenue Department
ADVERTISING
Agencies Larger agencies may have other departments to
keep things running.

While perhaps not the most exciting jobs on

the surface, they are incredibly important and
often are very stable jobs in a sometimes
volatile business

They offer mainstream business students who

may not even think of ad agencies as a career
path to work in a stimulating business.
 Contemporary Non-revenue Department
ADVERTISING
Agencies Business Affairs
Larger agencies that produce radio spots,
television commercials of any length and video
content for use on the Internet have a
department that handles the contractual
aspects of doing this kind of work

This department handles things like talent

contract, residual payments, video and
photography usage fees, licensing agreements,
and copyright issues of all kinds
 Contemporary Non-revenue Department
ADVERTISING
Agencies Asset Management
Agencies warehouse an incredible amount of
material, images, and digital files that were
created or obtained in the delivery of projects.
Much of this stuff will be needed again at some
point

The Asset Management department is

responsible for storing all such source material
and information. Without such a function,
things would get chaotic, inefficient, and quite
expensive very quickly.
 Contemporary Non-revenue Department
ADVERTISING
Agencies Legal
If an agency is large enough to have a legal
department, this department is consulted on
questions of advertising legality. Health, safety,
and performance claims are the types of issues
reviewed by legal

However, in most cases the client bears the

responsibility for the final approval of all claims
with legal import.
 Contemporary Non-revenue Department
ADVERTISING
Agencies Accounting and Billing
With the wide variety of services now provided
by agencies and the numerous ways agencies
are compensated, producing a totally accurate
client billing each month is difficult
Account by account, commission rates can vary,
mark-ups can vary, and hourly rates can vary.
Inprocess billing on projects is always challenging.
The accounting department has to get it all right
 Contemporary Non-revenue Department
ADVERTISING
Agencies HR, Admin, IT
This department formally handles hiring,
although the functional department heads will
also make hiring decisions.
Administration and human resources (HR) also
handle employee benefits, policy, and other key
personnel, policy and procedural issues

These people develop information technology

systems to improve efficiency and capabilities,
and then they hang around to keep the
computers running
 JUICY
Cases
STOP THE PRESSES QUESTION
On large quantity and complicated printed projects, it is What do you do
standard industry practice for the printing company to
provide the agency with a “press-proof” that shows
exactly how the job will look when it comes off the press.
The agency production manager or account manager
(often both) or the client will sign the press-proof as
demonstration of approval to run the job.
You are the account manager on a ski resort account,
and you are creating a ski trail map that shows
beginner green, intermediate blue, and difficult black.

You and the client both approved the press proof of the map, but
when it was printed the trail colors were incorrect. The difficult
runs were in green and the beginner in black trails. The printer says
it is not his fault. There are now 100,000 trail maps printed.
 JUICY
Cases
WHO SHOULD DO IT? QUESTION
Your client wants to do exploratory research on What are these reasons
consumers in the Dallas, Austin, and Houston that you must
markets. You have worked with your research diplomatically discuss
department and an outside research company with your client?
to do two online focus groups in each market.
You have provided an estimate for the research
project, but the client has decided that it will
be more cost effective if she did it herself, with
her research team. There are two strong
reasons why this is not the best practice with
regard to accomplishing actionable, objective
research.
 JUICY
Cases
A SENSITIVETY THRESHOLD QUESTION
You’re the senior account manager on a major import What should your
car brand. Minorities are a big target audience for reaction be to this
your client’s products. Three years ago you approved, creative concept?
for presentation to your client, an ad that was
destined to run in Jet, a magazine for African
Americans. The headline on the ad read “Unlike your
last boyfriend, it goes to work every morning.”
The ad created a lot of controversy and bad press among the
black community and was pulled after one appearance. Now the
creative team has come up with a postcard to be mailed to a list
of 500,000 persons who have indicated an interest in the brand.
The ethnicity of the list is a cross section of the U.S. population.
The proposed card shows a close-up of a
smiling black man with a gold tooth jewel in
the shape of the client’s logo.
 JUICY
Cases
THE JEALOUS CLIENT QUESTION
You are an account manager for a client who What to do?
just hired a new advertising manager. While it
looks like you are going to be able to work with
this person, there is one issue that will
probably hamper the relationship if not dealt
with correctly. The new client contact is jealous
of advertising people in general and you
specifically. He thinks that the advertising
business is glamorous, that all advertising
people have inflated egos, and is envious of the
big salary he thinks you make.