Notre Dame University Bangladesh

Term Paper On

“Advertising Agencies in Bangladesh-Types and Functions”

Submitted to:

Professor Dr. Samir Kumar Sheel

Adjunct professor
MBA program

Submitted by:

Shakkhar Sarker
Student ID: 201980018
Batch-MBA 11th

Date of Submission: May 25, 2020

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Cover letter

25th may’ 2020

Professor Dr. Samir Kumar Sheel

Adjunct professor
Department Master of Business Administration
Notre Dame University Bangladesh

Subject: Letter of Transmittal

Dear Sir,

Here is the report assigned that on the topic as per your request. The report has been completed
meaningfully and correctly, as much as possible. I am submitting my report on the type &
function of an Advertising Agency in Bangladesh.
I would be happy if you read the report carefully and I will be trying to answer all the questions
that you have about the report.
Sincerely Yours;

...............................
Shakkhar sarker
ID no: 2001980018
Master of Business Administration (MBA)
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Table of content

SL NO. Page
Particulars
01 Introduction 4

02 Objective of the study 5

03 Methodology of the study 5

04 Finding 6

05 Decision 7

06 Result 8

07 Conclusion 11

08 Bibliography 12
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Abstract

Advertising is an expanding and important component in the context of any organization. It is a

part of marketing strategy that an organization should apply in order to increase the consumer
interest and thereby gain on market share. In Bangladesh advertising agencies are not well
organized. Three advertising firms named Bitopy, East Asiatic and Interspan were established in
1967. Now the total numbers of advertising agencies are almost seven hundreds. Yet they are
more competitive than previous. And new employment opportunity has been created & they have
been performing in more professional manner. So it is important to know the structure of each
department and functions of advertising agency. This study adopts with qualitative in nature.
From the research, other researchers and policy makers will get an insight about the type and
functions of advertising agencies in Bangladesh.

1. Introduction

Definition of advertising agency to say, as a creative agency that create, plant and handle
advertising for its client. The advertising agency may be referred to as a collection of specialized
business brains. The functional organization of the agency is designed to facilitate the work of
these specialists. It is vital, however, that the work of each person be directed toward one
common goal – the successful planning, development, and execution of the complete campaign
(Sandage 1967).The main reasons outside agencies are used is that they provide the client with
the services of highly skilled individuals who are specialists in their chosen fields.
An advertising agency staff may include artists, writers, media analysts, researchers, and others
with specific skills, knowledge, and experience who can help market the clients’ products or
services (Belch 2007).An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to
creating, planning, and handling advertising (and sometimes other forms of promotion) for its
clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the
effort of selling the clients’ products or services. An ad agency can also handle overall marketing
and branding strategies and sales promotion for its clients. Typical ad agency clients include
business and corporations, non-profit organizations and government agencies. Agencies may be
hired to provide an advertising campaign. An outside agency can also provide an objective view
point of the market and its business that is not subject to internal company policies, biases or
other limitations. The agency can draw on the broad range of experience it has gained while
working on a diverse set of marketing problems for various clients (Belch 2007).
Developing and implementing an integrated marketing communication program is usually a
complex and detailed process involving the efforts of many persons (Belch 2007).
As consumers, we generally get little thought to the individuals or organizations that create the
clever advertisements that capture our attention. But for those who involved in the marketing
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process, it is important to understand the nature of the ad agency and structure and functions. The
advertising and promotions’ business is changing as marketers search for better ways to
communicate with their customers. Every advertising agency must develop an organizational
structure that will meet their clients’ need and serve their own internal requirements. Most
medium and large agencies are structured under either a departmental or group system. Under
the departmental system, each agency sets up a separate department and functions according to
department. So the growing need of advertisement it is too important to understand the
departmental structure and functions of each department, especially those who are involved in
the marketing process. There were the days when most of the people didn’t even know a bit
about the advertising field, but with the pace of time, a huge change has been made in peoples’
thinking manner. Now a day, it seems as there is almost nothing that they don’t gain knowledge
about. There are numerous organizations that want to promote their business by hiring
advertising agencies (Belch 2007). So, for the aforesaid reasons this research has been conducted
on “The type & functions of an Advertising agency in Bangladesh”.

2. Objective of the study

The present paper seeks to highlight the structure of each type and functions of each department.
The main objectives of this study are:
 To detect the structure of each types of an advertising agency,
 To identify and assess the functions of advertising agency.

3. Methodology of the study

As per the idea of the investigation and kind of data required individual and meetings with the
concerned officials was led. This investigation embraces with subjective in nature. Other than
essential data and auxiliary data was gathered from the publicizing firms and different sources.
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4. Finding

There are basically 5 types of advertising agencies.

Full service Agencies
 Large size agencies.
 Deals with all stages of advertisement.
 Different expert people for different departments.
 Starts work from gathering data and analyzing and ends on payment of bills to the media
people.
Interactive Agencies
 Modernized modes of communication are used.
 Uses online advertisements, sending personal messages on mobile phones, etc.
 The ads produced are very interactive, having very new concepts, and very innovative.
Creative Boutiques
 Very creative and innovative ads.
 No other function is performed other than creating actual ads.
 Small sized agencies with their own copywriters, directors, and creative people.
Media Buying Agencies
 Buys place for advertise and sells it to the advertisers.
 Sells time in which advertisement will be placed.
 Schedules slots at different television channels and radio stations.
 Finally supervises or checks whether the ad has been telecasted at opted time and place or
not.
In-House Agencies
 As good as the full service agencies.
 Big organization prefers these type of agencies which are in built and work only for them.
 These agencies work as per the requirements of the organizations.
There are some specialized agencies which work for some special advertisements. These types of
agencies need people of special knowledge in that field. For example, advertisements showing
social messages, finance advertisements, medicine related ads, etc
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5. Decision

There are several well known advertising firms in Bangladesh. Such as- Grey Advertising,
Mediacom, Adcom, Carrot, Clockwork, Interspeed Advertising, Asiatic Marketing
Communications Ltd.etc. These advertising firms make advertisements for well-known
multinational corporations and franchises like Unilever, GrameenPhone, Banglalink, Airtel,
Robi, Pepsi, Coca Cola etc. It can be observed that, multinational corporations are more
concerned about advertising than local business organizations. Many local firms are not bothered
about or less interested in advertising. These firms either make less investment in advertisements
or make no investment in it. As a result, they can’t compete with their foreign competitors. This
is very much clear that Airtel can sell more SIMs than Taletalk can. One of the reasons for this is
that Airtel invests much more in advertisements than Teletalk do. Why are these happening?
Reasons for this can be attributed to either of the two groups-
 Ad firms: They do not attract or do not want to attract the local firms. Rather they are
satisfied with their present clients.
 Local firms: They are not bothered about investment in advertisements. They don’t think
it as advertisements.

Another thing is that, the quality of the advertisements created by these advertising firms for the
local business firms is not up to the mark. For example, there are many people who buy products
when they are influenced by ads. That means there are some people who are greatly influenced
by ads. But if a person of this type sees the advertisement of ‘Walton motor bike’ which is made
in Bangladesh will prefer an ‘Apache’ or a ‘Hunk’ to the ‘Walton motor bike’. Even if the
materials to produce a Walton bike is same as the Hunk or Apache, the person will not buy a
Walton just because of two reason, Hunk or Apache is more popular than Walton. And the major
reason is, Walton’s Advertisement is not attractive and not informative. The viewers will not get
a clear idea about the mechanism and performance of the Walton. Thus Walton will lag behind
its foreign competitor. This is a common scenario for most of the local product of Bangladesh.
The questions are- why ad firms cannot make attractive ads for the local firms? Why they are not
or less concerned about the local firms? Why local firms are not bothered about advertisements?
What ad firms can do to attract the local firms? Why should they attract the local firms?
The general purpose of the study is to address and evaluate present activities and performance of
the Advertising industry (Ad firms) in Bangladesh and then to propose some recommendations
that can be adopted by the ad firms to improve their performance as well as to help business
organizations improve their advertisement and marketing strategy. In defining the limits of this
study, the study areas to be addressed are determined. A careful review of those areas led to the
identification of the following specific research objectives:
1. To identify the reasons of the poor quality of ads (Specially made for the local firms).
2. To determine why Ad firms are not interested about local firms.
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3. To determine why ad firms are not bothered about investment in advertisements.

4. To assess the attitude of the people toward the advertisements in Bangladesh
5. To suggest some measures for the ad firms, as solutions to above mentioned problems

6. Result

Advertising agency is an independent service-rendering organization. It delivers various services

and performs many functions for its clients, who are advertisers. It is mainly involved in
activities like planning, preparing and placing of ads in media. It also performs non-advertising
functions for them. It offers them advisory and creative services. It does so to make a profit.
Following image depicts the major functions of advertising agency.

Eleven main functions of ad agency are as follows:

 Attracting clients,
 Research function,
 Advertising planning,
 Creative function,
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 Media selection,
 Advertising budget,
 Coordination,
 Sales promotion,
 Marketing research,
 Non-advertising functions, and
 Public relations.
Now let's discuss above main functions of an advertising agency.
1. Attracting clients
Advertising agency needs clients (advertisers). Without them, it cannot survive.
Ad agency always tries to attract clients usually by giving ads in trade journals. It also seeks their
attention by offering them various services. It offers expert, cheap and quick services. It
maintains good relations with them. It tries to give them full satisfaction. It strives harder to
attain their goodwill and customer-loyalty.
2. Research function

Advertising agency gathers information related to the client's product.

It collects following information about a product under its research function:
 Features, quality, advantages and limitations of a product,
 Present and future market possibilities,
 Competition in the market,
 Situation in the market,
 Distribution methods,
 Buyers' preferences so on.
Ad agency analyses (studies) all this collected information properly and draws conclusions for its
research. It helps in planning an advertising campaign, selecting proper media and creation
function
3. Advertising planning
Advertising agency plans the entire ad campaign of its client.
Advertising planning is a primary function of an ad agency. It is done when its research function
is completed. That is, after analyzing the client's product, its competitors, market conditions, etc.
It is done by experts who use their professional experience to make a result-oriented advertising-
plan.
After making the advertising plan, it is shown to the client. If the client likes and approves it,
then the plan is executed (put into action).
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4. Creative function
Advertising agency put the advertising-plan into action under its creative function.
Creation of ads is the most important function of an ad agency. Generally, it involves activities
like: Copy writing, drawing photographs, Making illustrations, layouts, an effective ad message,
etc.
These jobs are done by experts like copy writers, artists, designers, etc. These people are highly
skilled and creative. They make an advertisement more appealing. Attractive ads help to increase
the sales of the product.
The ad agency must always use fresh ideas for creating ads. It must neither use old tactics nor
copy the ad-campaign of other products.
5. Media selection
Advertising agency helps an advertiser to select a proper media (ad platform) to promote his
advertisement effectively.
Media selection is a highly specialized function of an ad agency. It must select the most suitable
media for its client's ad. It must choose media, which has a potential to give best results for the
lowest cost. It must select more than one media for the ad. For example, an advertisement can be
put on television, the Internet, newspapers, magazines, etc.
After selecting the media, the ad agency must maintain goods contacts with the media.
6. Advertising budget
Advertising agency helps an advertiser to prepare his ad budget. It helps him to use his budget
economically and make the best use of it.
Without a proper advertising budget, there is a risk of client's funds getting wasted or lost. If an
advertiser suffers a loss, he may not bring new projects. As a result, there is a possibility of
losing a potential client that can bring more business to an ad agency.

7. Coordination
Advertising agency brings a good coordination between the advertiser, itself, media and
distributors. This is a very important function. If coordination is proper, it will increase the sales
of the product.
8. Sales promotion
Advertising agency performs sales promotion. It helps an advertiser to introduce sales promotion
measures for the dealers and consumers. This helps to increase the sales of the product.
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9. Marketing research
Advertising agency helps its clients to solve their marketing problems. It does so by conducting a
marketing research for them.
10. Non-advertising functions
Advertising agency also performs many non-advertising functions:
 It fixes the prices of the product,
 It determines the discounts,
 It designs the product,
 It also designs its package, trademarks, labels, etc.
 These non-advertising services help an advertiser to increase its sales.
11. Public relations
Advertising agency does the public relations (PR) work for its clients. It increases the goodwill
between its clients and other parties like consumers, employees, middlemen, shareholders, etc. It
also maintains good relations between the client and media owner.

7. Conclusion

Name of the department varies from firm to firm. Few firms in our country consist of the above
mentioned six departments. Some firms have client service, creative designing, copy writing,
strategic, human resource department with accounts and administrative departments.
As a result of the growing needs and the fierce competition of the market, the promotional
activities of an organization need to be more focused towards segment to which the goods or
services are produced. Advertising agencies perform several types of complex activities in
corporate, business and social platforms.
They do the challenging job with the help of various departments. And each department is
committed about their job. Each advertisement firm ensures integrated marketing and total
quality management through their work. As they know the main purpose of an advertisement is
to inform, persuade and remind customer with generating new ideas as the market is competitive.
From this research it is really clear that each department is equally important for accomplishing
their tasks to obtain the desired goal that is clients’ satisfaction; and clients’ success depends on
how efficiently and effectively an agency performs its work.
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8. Bibliography

I. Belch, E. George, and Belch, A. Michael (2007), “The Role of Ad Agencies and Other
Marketing Communication Organizations”, Advertising and Promotion, The McGraw-
Hill companies, inc., pp. 66-99.

II. Sandage, C. H. (1967), “Coordination of Complete Campaign”, Advertising Theory and

Practice, RichardD. Irwin, inc., p 637.