Where did all the agencies go and how can we find them? Darren Woolley
Advertising agencies used to be found in the Yellow Pages under ‘Advertising Agencies’. The listing is still there, but now it includes media, direct and promotion agencies, design and integrated communication firms, corporate communication professionals, through-the-line consultants, and more.
The problem for many advertisers is not where to find potential advertising partners, it’s where to find out about them.
Ask around
There is a saying that goes: ‘Most clients only know three advertising agencies—the one they left, the one they have now and the one they wish they had’. While there are certainly more than three agencies in the market, if you ask 10 marketers who they would recommend, that could hopefully give you 30 agencies to consider.
The problem is they may be referring to an agency they worked with (or for) a few years back, so you then have to check if the information and their perception of the agency is still up to date.
Still, asking a few friends what they think about their current agency is not a bad strategy. Just make sure they don’t think you’re looking, because if it gets out, hundreds of agencies could find you, and that is more time-consuming that you can imagine.
Follow the media
You could look for the advertising that gets your attention and try to find out which agency is doing it. Of course, if you’re in the same category this could lead to potential competitive conflicts.
You could read magazines such as this one and note which agency is doing the work getting noticed by the industry, check which agencies are winning business and which agencies are recruiting new and high-profile staff.
But this can give you a distorted view of the market in the short term, as it is usually the extremes that get noticed: the biggest or the most outrageous, with many quiet achievers going unnoticed in the press.
Check the industry directories
Unfortunately the rate of change in the industry means if you are looking at the latest printed directory it was probably out of date before it hit the presses.
If you’re a marketer with a big advertiser, you will probably discover that the small consultancy you gave a project to three years ago is still listed as one of your rostered agencies.
Of course, there are the online directories. The speed and interactivity of the internet allows you to access databases faster than ever before from the comfort of your desk. Unfortunately this same speed does not appear to extend to updating the information. I recently found a major agency still listed with a client that it had quite spectacularly lost six months earlier.
Surf for an agency
Type ‘advertising agency’ in the Google search engine. You’ll get 1,040,000 web pages worldwide and 12,800 with an Australia-only search. Worse still, excluding the paid page listings, at the side, there are no advertising agencies in the first five pages, with press, education institutions and industry bodies such as the AFA dominating.
When you do get to the agency links, you’ll find a huge variety of presentations. But on most of these agency sites it is hard to find details such as current clients, number of staff, resources, speciality experience—in fact most of the information you really need to start the search for a new agency.
The other problem with many agency websites is they are not up-to-date, with many still listing ex-clients and more embarrassingly, listing key staff even though their high-profile move to a competitor was the talk of the industry weeks or even months earlier.
One of the better sites worth checking is the AFA site at afa.org.au, where currently more than 140 creative and media agencies are listed along with contact details, staff numbers, services and current clients.
Contact an agency search firm
Agency search firms help match the needs of advertisers to the expertise of the agencies.
If using a consultant, make sure they are independent and not paid by the agencies they recommend, they have current and broad industry knowledge and a tried and tested methodology for managing the process.
Ultimately the process of selecting a new agency partner is about matching your needs, values and expectations to the agency’s services, expertise and culture. Perhaps if more agencies spent more time keeping their directory or AFA site data up to date and less time sending out credentials doc-uments that rarely contain the information you really need, the whole process would be so much easier for everyone.
