CRITERIA FOR CHOOSING ADVERTISING AGENCIES

By what criteria would you select a particular advertising agency to promote your campaign?

An agency is an organization that does promotional jobs for another organization through creative development in copywriting and art direction also media planning and buying.

There are basically three types of agencies; these include the full service agency, limited service agency, and the ‘a la carte agency’.

A full service agency is an agency which does the total marketing communication hob for an organization. Their services include creativity, strategic planning, production, media planning and buying and market research.

The next type is the limited service agency. There the agency specializes in particular elements of marketing communication for an organization. For example, an advertising agency could only focus on designing and development of advertisement.

‘A la carte’ agencies provide a wide range of services from a range of different specialist agencies.

Choosing an advertising agency is not an easy and brief process because the agency is one of the marketing tools that will determine the success of a campaign. International advertising entails dissemination of a commercial message to target audiences in more than one country. Target audiences differ from country to country in terms of how they perceive or interpret symbols, respond to humour or emotional appeals as well as levels of literacy and language spoken.

When selecting an advertising agency it is therefore necessary to establish criteria on which the decision will be made.

First the quality of the agency must be ascertained. This means the agency must have the best team to handle your product, research into the organizations portfolio, their track record, and how successful they have been in marketing or advertising new products. Do not allow your product to be handled by junior staffs, seniority should be applies on all sides of the Accounts team planning, Accounts Service, Creative and Media.

Secondly, look out for the agency’s market research and Public Relations. This entails the agency’s ability to come up with quality research; A detailed research that outlines information on the consumer, competition and cost. The Public Relations department of the agency should be able to create a sustainable corporate brand and an overall company image with the market place.

The next criteria to look out for are the ability of the agency to coordination international campaigns. Here you look out for an agency which has offices in the central business district capitals of targeted countries.

The size of the agency’s international business: This refers to the size of distributors, wholesalers, customers, etc. The bigger the organization the more trusted they are to handle the product.

Other criteria to look out for are the level of control desired by the company. This is very important because the company needs to overcome communication barriers such as laws, tradition and cultures, religion, social mores such as gestures, mannerisms, etc. the agency must be one who can prevent anything from interfering with your message in other for your company to achieve the desired result; also, the communication network of that agency and its other branches across the world.

Finally the international agency chosen must have the ability to cover relevant markets. The agency must have the appropriate means of reaching all the targeted markets. The agency must have extensive networks of offices in the countries where it wants to reach in order to coordinate the advertising process in all countries where they have their targeted audiences.