The marketing communications industry consists of four main groups. These are the media, the clients, the agencies and support organisations. (Source: Fill, 2006). They are all interdependent with each other, as each needs another to operate. Clients have the option to take on their communications themselves, or to get another party to do on their behalf. Most take on the help of agencies. This is mainly because taking on their own marketing communications can be very costly and inefficient. Enrolling the help of a specialist agency enables them of these problems.
Agencies are companies that provide a specialist service to another company. There purpose is to take on work that a business may not be able to do. In this context, the agencies are to provide services in market communication such as advertising and media. There are a few agencies types that are available to companies. Firstly there are the full service agencies. These agencies will pretty much offer a full range of services to a business. They will be able to take on companies advertising needs. Their services will offer research, planning, production and launch. They will be able to give you a complete service. (Source: Fill, 2006)
The next are the media independents. There services will be providing specialist media information and help. Their services will be mainly in planning and buying of media. They will not be able to offer many more services. Media independents usually work as subsidiaries of full service agencies. Therefore they will usually operate in the same way as the agency. A la carte is when all media communications is divided by different suppliers. For example, the research may take place from a full service agency, the media buying from the media independents and the planning achieved by the client themselves. This is called a la carte as it is a mixture of each.
Its up to the client as to which type of agency suits their advertising needs. It depends largely on the type of product. For a launch of a new product, a business may consider using a full service agency. This is because they would be able to control all aspects of project and will ensure it will run properly and be effective. For a re launch of a product, a business may consider using media independents for solely planning a new television advertising campaign.
An advertising campaign I have focused on is the recent one by Sony. It has been used to publicise and promote the launch of a new product line of televisions, BRAVIA. The advertising campaign used by Sony uses various forms of media. However the campaign mostly revolved around the television adverts. Below are various screen shots of the television advert. TV advert: Bravia Balls The first advert was a short film that captured 250,000 multi-colored bouncy balls bouncing down the famous steep streets of San Francisco. It was shown in slow motion in very high definition with a gentle slow soundtrack in the background. The whole advert is very calm and beautifully set. The purpose is to demonstrate the amazing picture quality of the BRAVIA television sets.
