What does an ad agency do?

It occurs that people are asking us what an ad agency does. This is quite a legitimate question. We would like to answer this question with this blog entry and our video!

What does an Ad Agency do?

広告代理店とは何でしょうか？

An ad agency is a service provider that supports its customers in the areas of idea generation, consulting, and realization of both marketing and communication measures. An ad agency can either support a customer in all kind of areas, in which case we are talking of a full-service ad agency; or an ad agency can focus on single areas only, such as web programming, then the terms consulting agency or ad agency apply.

Let’s have a look at the cooperation of a full-service ad agency and a customer – in this case, Marc Bühlmann:

Marc is an inventor and entrepreneur, he developed a smart collar for cats. Marc is seeking professional support from a full-service ad agency for the launch and the promotion of his product. We gladly invite Marc to our full-service ad agency Rocket for a briefing.

As soon as the task is clear, the further course is planned in the following four steps:

1. Definition brand strategy
2. Creation brand presence
3. Media planning
4. Marketing evaluation

In a first step, the brand strategy needs to be defined. This includes the naming, the definition of the target group and the value proposition. The strategical standards are written down in the branding guidelines.

In a next step, different employees take care of the project:

The consultant. He conducts the project and works with both the customer and the agency. The consultant creates the marketing and media plans.

The Art Director, the graphic designer, and the motion designer. They are responsible for designing all the advertising material such as the logo or the website.

The copywriter.  She creates a convincing claim and composes contents for the advertising media.

The web developer. He programs the website and guarantees impeccable functionality on all devices.

Both the exchange and the cooperation within the team are of utmost importance and undoubtedly lead to an effective brand presence.

Based on the set brand guidelines, the team needs to take care of the brand presence in a second step. The product receives a name, a logo, a claim, and a packaging. Photographing, writing and designing follow next.

Design-guidelines are written down in a corporate design manual. This guarantees a unitary appearance of all the advertising measures.

In a next step, the new brand presence is realized in the form of a campaign. For that reason, a powerful media scheme is presented to the customer and all required communication means are created. These include: a poster, a flyer, a TV commercial, a Google AdWords campaign, and a website along other measures.

As soon as every matter is clarified, the campaign goes live. The campaigns’ impact is being measured continuously. We analyze the results, create a campaign report and discuss the results with Marc. Based on the results the advertising strategies are continuously optimized: Excellently working measures are intensified, less successful methods are optimized.

Marc is thoroughly happy with the work of our ad agency. The smart collars for cats are a success!