Advertising Agency – Types

Ad agencies come in all sizes. They include everything from one-person or two-person shops, which mostly depends on freelance talent to do most functions, small to medium sized agencies, large independents, and multi-national, multi-agency conglomerates. Full-service, or Media-neutral advertising agencies have pantsed the talent and as print ads or television commercials. Other agencies, especially larger ones, produce work for many types of media. The “line”, in this case, is the traditional marker between media that pay fee to the agency and the media that do not. Most Full-Service agencies work on a combination of fee-based and commission based compensation.

Interactive Agencies may classify themselves by offering a mix of Web Design/Development, Search Engine Marketing from Internet Advertising Agency, or E-Business/E-Commerce consulting. Interactive agencies rose to prominence before the traditional advertising agencies fully embraced the Internet. Offering a wide range of services, some of the interactive agencies grew very rapidly, although some have downsized just as rapidly due to changing market conditions. Today, the successful interactive agencies are defined as companies that provide specialized advertising and marketing services for the digital space. The digital space is defined as any multi-media enabled electronic channel that an advertiser’s message can be seen or heard from. The ‘digital space’ translates to the; Internet, Kiosks, CD-ROMs, DVDs, and Lifestyle Devices. Interactive Agencies function similarly to advertising agencies although they focus solely on interactive advertising services. They deliver services such as strategy, creative, design, video, development, programming, deployment, management, and fulfillment reporting. Often, Interactive Agencies offerings are; Digital Brand Development, Lead Generation, Rich Media Campaigns, Interactive Marketing and Communications Strategy, Interactive Video brand experiences, Web 2.0 website design and development, e-Learning Tools, email marketing, SEO/SEM services, Content Management Services, web application development, and overall Data Mining & ROI Assessment.