archive for December, 2011

40 Things You Can Ask Your Ad Agency To Do

By On December 29, 2011 In creativity, marketing With No Comments Permanent Link to 40 Things You Can Ask Your Ad Agency To DoPermalink

A lot has changed since the days when agencies only did ads. (The concept this team is reviewing must have been brilliant; the guy on the left is wearing sunglasses.)

Long gone are the days when an advertising agency designed ads and little else. In fact, today’s agencies fulfill such a wide array of marketing functions that the term “ad agency” is woefully inadequate.

Take a look at the list below of stuff you can ask your agency to do and you’ll see what I mean.

  1. Create your website
  2. Design your packaging
  3. Name your product
  4. Develop a new brand
  5. Create point-of-sale items for your product
  6. Design your logo
  7. Design your corporate ID package
  8. Produce your annual report
  9. Proofread your annual report
  10.  Make it easier for people to shop for your product
  11.  Create a web-based sweepstakes sales promotion
  12.  Design your trade show exhibit
  13.  Produce training materials for your sales force
  14.  Create posters, banners and window clings for your showroom
  15.  Assemble and ship mockups in time for your big pitch tomorrow
  16.  Brainstorm ways to help you reduce unnecessary product returns
  17.  Organize all the information for your catalog
  18.  Write a clever, catchy tagline
  19.  Conduct audience research
  20.  Process mail-in rebate forms
  21.  Get translations for marketing your product in Mexico and Canada
  22.  Oversee a photo shoot
  23.  Recommend a social media strategy for your brand
  24.  Design a product sell sheet
  25.  Map out a plan for the way your products should be arranged on retail shelves
  26.  Negotiate and place your media buys
  27.  Design an eye-catching billboard
  28.  Write and produce your TV or radio ads
  29.  Stay on top of the latest trends in culture and communication
  30.  Write a sales offer email
  31.  Write and produce your how-to videos and post them on YouTube
  32.  Help you decide if Twitter makes sense for your brand
  33.  Develop an e-commerce component for your website
  34.  Guide you through a name change
  35.  Partner with popular blogs to talk-up your product
  36.  Help you develop a new product
  37.  Help coordinate your public relations efforts
  38.  Help maintain consistency in all your communications
  39.  Write instructions for using your product
  40.  Oh yeah, almost forgot…create your ad campaign

That’s quite a list (and not even a complete one). And there’s no simple, catch-all term for companies that do all this. Yeah, we could say “marketing communications firm,” but that’s a mouthful of syllables – and only slightly more descriptive.

So for now we’ll just stick with “ad agency.”

It’s not 100% accurate, but people get it, right?