Ad Agency Process?

[Robin Finnell]

Hi there... it's been awhile. 8^)

My employer is a small publishing firm that sells ads to mostly small bizzes, and gives away the ad design to "seal the deal" as it were. Unfortunately, these "ma & pa" companies expect full-on ad agency service, when what they're only really paying for is the ~space~ in the publication. Lately this has been a real problem.

We’ve tried to tell the sales force again and again that we’re NOT an ad agency, but unfortunately, complimentary ad design is a really successful selling point and they won’t listen. So, they oversell our capabilities and the clients are disappointed when we haven’t nailed their product/service, strategy or demographic.

Go figure… with an average of only 2 hours or less to work on each ad, there’s not a whole lot we can do.

So, to better explain to the salespeople what to expect from our ad design department, I'm doing a comparative list of what we provide as far as design goes, as opposed to a full-fledged ad agency.

All that to ask this… Can anyone give me an overview of the ad agency process, from the time the account rep has established a contact with a client until the campaign is completed? I’m not looking for “War & Peace,” just a short, succinct list with smaller words (~giggle~) so the salespeople can understand.

Thanks much!

[steve2112]

ad agencies will sit with a client for 2-3 hours and discuss the ad. Then do 3-5 mock ups of different ideas then show them. After that you decide which one to go with and maybe 2 revisions on that. Ad agencies will hire illustratoers, photographers etc.

I work in a small print shop and we too give away the design to sell the job. What works for us is showing people hey this is our basic design and it includes just this, list exactly what it includes. The I show them fancier stuff and say this is the sample of stuff that was designed above the base price and tell them they run between x-x depending on the the customers needs and wants. I usually say that the free stuff is like just putting basic text on a photo or whatever and more advanced designs involve client meetings, mulitple mocks, etc.

Its a tough thing because the sales people always like to say how great the designer are and how great the free stuff is but maybe create 10 sample of basic stuff and say this is what it is.

steve

[Robin Finnell]

Hi Steve, thanks for your quick reply! You nailed the salespeople talking about how great the ad. design dept. is! It's frustrating because they have no concept on how little time we can devote to each ad because of the sheer quantity that moves through our dept. on a weekly basis.

I have often thought we could make more money for the company if we charged appropriately for more "intricate" designs. Maybe this little research project could manifest something like that for us.

However, I guess I'm thinking LARGE agency process... $100K+ campaigns, etc. Like when the agency sends someone out to observe the business to get a real feel for where the company has been (history) and where they're going... etc. This is the kind of stuff the salespeople AND the business owners expect us to inuitively know, based on a crappy web site (that their 2nd cousin's son made as a jr. high project) and a business card, mind you.

And boy, they make no bones about telling us how WRONG we got it after they see our proof.

Thanks again!

[MikeTheVike]

i interned at a small magazine in college. I know exactly how you feel. The magazine actually charged per hour, but the Editor didn't want design time to be greater than 2 hours. Talk about desinging some craptacular ads...haha

[Robin Finnell]

LOL! I *** love *** that term.... CRAPtacular! Woot!

8^D

[patkennedy78]

Like Steve said above, get your sales people some examples of the kind of design they get. If Joe the salesman shows them 3 to 5 examples of designs they get then they know what to expect, just make sure your the one to give the examples.

[budafist]

Perhaps a good suggestion would be that the basic ad is free, but anything with more than 1 set of corrections or any extra clipart or illustration starts incurring a fee.

[tinmanton]

Ad agency backgrounder:
- agency prepares a concept/campaign (initial concept and copy) for presentation to a client
- agency presents or as to what it's really called "pitches" a campaign to the client
- agency closes a deal with a client when the client likes the pitch
- agency then refines the concept and presents it again, they also settle for a date of the ad run
- if the client approves the final concept, agency moves to production: shoot, post production, layout, etc.
- agency then gets the approval of the final art and if it's good, it then gets to the press for proofing
- if all goes well, the ad/campaign is run in whatever publication it is and client settles the payment

well, basically that's how things work in the ad agency. there's actually a lot more in between but those are the major ones and 2 hours isn't enough for producing an ad... really

[Robin Finnell]

Thanks, Tinmanton for that overview!

I have a question... Do you know how/what the agency does to prepare the initial campaign concepts? They usually send someone out to do R & D or "discovery" on the client, right?

[tinmanton]

The ad agency actually asks ther client to provide informations and past marketing materials that the company has. This becomes the foundation of the initial concept on where they would place the client in the market. That's called positioning. After figuring out the positio to be taken, the agency then studies the potential and existing market of the client. This is where the study for the demographics and psychograpics starts. These twe are the key inredients as to how to approach the target audience (market). Sometimes the agency would even perform a random survey just to get additional information about the client's market. From here, the agency will determine what campaign strategy they would apply for the materials to be produced. All of these happen after the client signs up with the agency. No concept is pitch without formality of a contract signing because it would be a waste of time for the agency specially if the client doesn't consider in getting the agency.

Basically, all the background information and other stuff will really come from the client. Without those, the agency will have a very hard time working on all the projects specially when it comes to conceptualizing.

These, though, doesn't go for all ad agencies because there is no real template on how agencies work. They develop their own system and strategies on how to deal with clients. Well, that's how agencies work from where I am.

[Robin Finnell]

Wow! Those are some great details! Thanks! This helps me a lot! 8^)