How to Select an Advertising Agency?

This article guides you about how to select an advertising agency.

Selecting an Agency:

A logical approach to select the advertising agency is to establish a selection criterion.

According to Robert J. Tucker, following factors are to be considered in screening and selecting agency:

a. Agency skills.

b. Current clients.

c. Agency size.

d. Agency location.

e. The length of time the agency has been in business.

f. Agency’s financial position.

g. The compensation package.

h. Product conflicts.

(a) Agency Skills:

Some agencies specialise in certain areas such as legal advertising and medical advertising. Accordingly, it would be useful to know if the agency specialises in our product or has specialists who are familiar in the promotion of our product. If the agency has solved problems similar to ours and is innovative in nature, that would be a positive point in its favour.

(b) Current Clients:

Since most advertisers are careful in selecting an agency, an agency with a solid list of clients would be more desirable. It will also be useful to note how many new accounts were acquired in the past two or three years and how many accounts were lost. The reasons for the lost accounts may highlight some of the weaknesses the agency may possess which would affect the decision to choose.

(c) Agency Size:

Large budget advertisers tend to go to large agencies because large agencies have better staff and can maintain a greater number of different specialists on their staff. Large agencies do not like to take small accounts as these are not profitable. Similarly, small advertisers do not select large agencies for fear of insufficient attention.

(d) Agency Location:

Agency location is equally important since the agency client relationship requires frequent communication, thus proximity of the agency of the advertiser is desirable. The advertiser may select the network agency if the promotion of the product is required in different geographic areas.

(e) The Length of Time the Agency has been in Business:

The longer an agency has been in business, the more stable it is expected to be and stable agencies are more reliable.

(f) Agency’s Financial Position:

If the agency is in a week financial condition, then it will be spending more time in solving its own problems than working on the advertiser’s campaign. Also, financial difficulties indicate poor planning and lack of stability.

(g) The Compensation Package:

How the agency would charge the client must be clearly understood, so that there is no misunderstanding afterwards. Whether, it is in a billing based method or cost based method is not enough. It must be more specific and a detailed analysis of the method adopted is necessary.

(h) Product Conflicts:

If an agency has already another account with the same or similar product, then it would not be advisable to select that particular agency because of conflict of interest involved.