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.
- Create your website
- Design your packaging
- Name your product
- Develop a new brand
- Create point-of-sale items for your product
- Design your logo
- Design your corporate ID package
- Produce your annual report
- Proofread your annual report
- Make it easier for people to shop for your product
- Create a web-based sweepstakes sales promotion
- Design your trade show exhibit
- Produce training materials for your sales force
- Create posters, banners and window clings for your showroom
- Assemble and ship mockups in time for your big pitch tomorrow
- Brainstorm ways to help you reduce unnecessary product returns
- Organize all the information for your catalog
- Write a clever, catchy tagline
- Conduct audience research
- Process mail-in rebate forms
- Get translations for marketing your product in Mexico and Canada
- Oversee a photo shoot
- Recommend a social media strategy for your brand
- Design a product sell sheet
- Map out a plan for the way your products should be arranged on retail shelves
- Negotiate and place your media buys
- Design an eye-catching billboard
- Write and produce your TV or radio ads
- Stay on top of the latest trends in culture and communication
- Write a sales offer email
- Write and produce your how-to videos and post them on YouTube
- Help you decide if Twitter makes sense for your brand
- Develop an e-commerce component for your website
- Guide you through a name change
- Partner with popular blogs to talk-up your product
- Help you develop a new product
- Help coordinate your public relations efforts
- Help maintain consistency in all your communications
- Write instructions for using your product
- 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?
©2017 Marketing Directions, Inc.
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