A look at the top Advertising Agencies of Delhi

Importance-of-choosing-right-advertising-agency

Marketers have increasingly realized that the quality of a product doesn’t guarantee sales anymore. The first thing a marketer has to do is ensure that the product enters the collective consciousness of the target market before he can think of sales. In order to achieve that, a well thought out marketing campaign becomes a necessity. This is why advertising agencies are becoming increasingly popular with businesses of every size.

Delhi being the capital and one of the largest metropolises in the country had attracted the best ad agencies. Most multinational advertising agencies that have a presence in India probably have one of its branches situated in Delhi. The Indian agencies which have prospered had improved their offerings substantially from where they initially started, which they had to do if they were going to compete with the big boys of the ad world. So the competition in the advertising sector and the influx of big names had not only helped the marketers by giving them more quality choices but also improved the standard of output of all competitors. The top ad agencies in Delhi are:

  • Ogilvy & Mather Ltd – The name does not need much of an introduction, widely considered as one of the best ad agencies in the world, the Delhi office had been the place which had conceptualized few of the best Indian ad campaigns of recent memory including Cadbury Dairy Milk and Vodafone.
  • DDB Mudra Group – It is one of the older ad agencies working in India with offices in fifteen cities across the country and employing over thousand people. It was one of the first full service agency the country has seen providing market research, media buying, content creation, design solution and later web based solutions to marketing need. Its clients include Bharat Petroleum and Aditya Birla Group.

    DDBMundra-Femina-Campaign
    DDBMundra Femina Campaign
  • JWT – It started its India operation in 1929 but it wasn’t until 1944 that it started its Delhi office which quickly became a popular destination for marketers across the country. Nokia (the recent Lumia campaign), Pepsi and UNICEF are amongst its clients.

    JWT-Nokia-Lumia-Campaign
    JWT Nokia Lumia Campaign
  • Dentsu Communications Private Limited – A Japanese company whose unique marketing solutions helped it to carve a niche in the global advertising world started its Indian chapter in 2003 by opening offices in Mumbai, New Delhi, Kochi, Chennai and Bangalore. It is the largest ad agency in the world outside the ownership of the big four holding One of the main campaigns it orchestrated was the Congress’s 2014 Election campaign.
  • Lowe Lintas – With a client list spanning 250+ clients, it is one of the most reputable agencies in India. It provides niche marketing services such as rural marketing and healthcare communication services. It recently designed the Cricket World Cup and Idea campaigns, both of which were hugely popular.

    Lowe-Lintas-World-Cup-Campaign
    Lowe Lintas World Cup Campaign

 It’s important to create a separate list for Indian companies because expecting them to compete with the global agencies isn’t simply fair. They don’t have the resources, experience or the expertise that is needed to compete with the top global firms. The top Indian agencies in Delhi are:

  1. releaseMyAd – It is a recent addition to the sector and started its operation in 2009, but it had already carved a name for itself by providing a comprehensive list of high quality services encompassing creative services as well as media planning and buying solutions across mediums such as cinema, newspaper and radio. Its client list strikes an impressive balance between small entrepreneurs and large MNCs. It’s already the largest online booking portal in India so it has got years of experience in providing top notch marketing solutions to clients across the country for years.

    releaseMyAd-Logo
    releaseMyAd Logo
  2. Flags Communication Private Limited – It started its business in 1999 and with the varied list of services it offered had created a name for itself.
  3. Infinity – It is a local ad agency which has recently become popular but unlike the other entries mentioned in the list, its client list is mainly limited to the Delhi region.

As the list demonstrates, the top Indian ad agency is undoubtedly releaseMyAd. You may contact us to find a comprehensive list of marketing solutions in Delhi.

An overview of Full Service Ad Agencies

Full-Service-Advertising-Agency

Full Service Advertising Agency offers a detailed list of services to its clients that cover every facet of advertising starting from media planning to releasing the actual advertisement to media selection to public relations and organizing events. It is a one-stop answer to all of client’s marketing needs. Increasingly full service agencies are also adding a digital component to their offering where they provide SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services, digital marketing including social media, content and mobile marketing. Their functions are diverse and finding a good full service ad agency is not easy, however one that has carved out a name for itself through quality work in the Indian marketing world is the Delhi based releaseMyAd.

Full-Service-Agency
Full Service Agency

Even a layman who never had the need to hire a marketer must have understood by now that full service ad agencies offer a series of benefits over other agencies simply because of the breadth of services it offers. So let’s list the chief advantages of a full service ad agency:

  1. Cost-Effective – What’s the first thought that crosses the mind of every employee; the BOD, the manager, the intern, in every organization across countries and industries when taking any important business decision, is the cost worth the benefit? General consumers also wonder the exact same thing while buying any product or service whether the steep price tag is counteracted by the benefits it gives. Now that I had established we are all looking for cost-effective solutions, one can understand how interesting a proposition full-service ad agencies present to organizations. Instead of hiring a bunch of separate agencies for every individual marketing activity which would have cost more, full service ad agencies reduce cost considerably by performing all the functions under the same roof and thus achieving economies of scale which ultimately helps the client.

    Full-Service-Agencies-are-Economical
    Full Service Agencies are economical
  2. Consistent Branding – Any advertiser wants its brand name to be synonymous with its product personality. Apple had been synonymous with innovation while in the Indian market Maggi had been synonymous with the low time span it takes to cook the noodles. For any brand to develop loyalty it is important to maintain a consistency about itself, if that’s not present the consumer ends up getting confused with what the brand represents. Hence it’s not surprising to see full service agencies being so popular with companies, as they help to maintain a consistency in the marketing plan, as all aspects of the campaign are framed with a level of coordination that couldn’t have been achieved if more than one agency was working on it.

    Full-service-Agency-helps-to-keep-Brands-consistent
    Full service Agency helps to keep Brands consistent

But even full service advertising agency had got some major disadvantages which are as follows:

  1. Limited Focus – No organization can be the best at everything it does and full service agencies are no exception. Though they might offer a comprehensive service list, its focus is mainly on doing a couple of them. Some may flourish at performing the creative services while others expertise might lie with digital marketing. The best creative experts might feel more comfortable joining smaller creative boutiques because of their exclusive focus on what they do. So full service agencies might not necessarily have the best talent at their disposal nor understand the working of every industry they work in. In those cases it might be better to hire niche agencies rather than full service ones.

    Disadvantages-of-full-service-agency
    Disadvantages of full service agency
  2. Limited Control – Most advertising agencies usually work on the brief provided by the companies and once that is provided the clients have minimal control over the direction, the marketing campaign takes. Though the ad agency is sure to conduct marketing research, its understanding of the brand might not coincide with the company’s viewpoint. Some advertisers may not be comfortable with this arrangement and hence may be discouraged to approach full service ad agencies.

    Disadvantages-of-full-service-agencies
    The question companies have to ask themselves

Ultimately whether a company hires a full service ad agency depends on whether if it’s comfortable with the trade-off between the control and the low cost, the industry it targets and the needs and objectives of an organization. There is not any concrete answer as to whether a full service agency should be preferred and the answer may vary considerably from one situation to another even for the same company.

As mentioned before an Indian ad agency which is making great strides is releaseMyAd. It has already become the premier ad agency in Delhi offering a large variety of services such as media planning, media buying and creative designing among others. It offers ad booking over a variety of mediums like newspaper, radio and cinema. To book ads in Delhi across any medium you may email book+delhi@releasemyad.com or you can also call 09830629298.

 

Hiring an Ad Agency Vs Maintaining an In-House Marketing Team in Delhi

In-House-Vs-Ad-Agency

The dilemma that marketers of all size are often confronted with is whether to hire an external ad agency or employ an in-house marketing team. Large companies want to exercise a greater degree of control in how their marketing campaign is planned and hence are often left debating between an advertising agency (greater specialization) and in-house team (greater control) while smaller companies also face the same debate because of financial constraints. The best way to understand the benefits and drawbacks of hiring an ad agency or giving the responsibility to an in-house team would be to analyze the pros and cons of both and illustrate the situations where one can be preferred over the other.

The main points of contention which had to be considered while making the choice between ad agency and in-house team in Delhi are as follows:

  1. Specialized Skill Set – The Company would get experts from every field working on its campaign starting from creative professionals like artists, designers and writers to experienced professionals in other fields like website developers and media planners if it chose to hire an advertising agency. However in certain cases an organization is not interested in using the full bouquet of services that an agency offers but is just looking for a particular utility function like creating a jingle for an ad or social media marketing. In that case it might be more prudent to look within the ranks to see if someone can fulfill the role instead of hiring one of the larger full service ad agencies because they need not necessarily attract the best professionals across all fields. The other option available to the organization is to hire a creative boutique or a SEO agency to do its job but they can sometimes seem too low key or small for bigger organizations.

    The-Pros-&-Cons-of-an-Ad-Agency-and-an-In-House-Team
    The Pros & Cons of an Ad Agency and an In-House Team
  2. Cost – The cost is possibly the most important determinant for most organizations while selecting between ad agency and in-house talent. The immediate cost of hiring an ad agency is always more than assigning existing employees newer responsibilities to develop different facets of the marketing campaign. So, it is important to consider the opportunity cost rather than the actual cost. It has been observed that in the long run the cost of paying a regular salary and other benefits to a permanent employee becomes much more than paying a hefty retainer to an ad agency for a short period of time.

    When-Ad-Agency-is-preferred
    When Ad Agency is preferred
  3. Duration of Project – This ties in directly with the cost factor explained above. If the advertising needs are periodic in nature then wasting resources training existing employees to perform a job which would only be needed for a short period of time does not make any sense. On the other hand a large organization which has some marketing need or the other to attend to throughout the year might very well be inclined towards developing the skills of its existing employees to ensure it is not always depending on an outside agency to meet its deadlines.
  4. Level of Control – The level of control desired by the organization also becomes an important factor while choosing between outside agency and inside resources. An outside agency won’t be as familiar with the brand personality which might make the organization uncomfortable about giving them full creative control of the campaign. The company personnel will be aware of its objectives, attuned to its needs and most importantly the organization would maintain complete control over the direction and the content of the campaign but they might be suffering from a lack of expertise.

    In-House-team
    In-House team

 

The decision ultimately boils down to the company’s need of the hour and its scope. If the campaign the organization is undertaking is for a long term project over which it wants to maintain a strong level of control, then in such a case it is best to use in house resources. An Ad Agency might however be the preferred option if a company is looking for a large scale campaign albeit one that will run for a limited time.

An Indian ad agency which is making great strides is releaseMyAd. It has already become the premier ad agency in Delhi offering a large variety of services such as media planning, media buying and creative designing among others. It offers ad booking over a variety of mediums like newspaper, radio and cinema. To book ads in Delhi across any medium you may email book+delhi@releasemyad.com or you can also call 09830629298.

The various services provided by an Advertising Agency in Delhi

Services-provided-by-an-Ad-Agency

Advertising agency provides a variety of different services to ensure its client’s product or services have the greatest chance of reaching as many end users as it can. They used to focus exclusively on preparing a commercial and releasing it. However with the changing nature of the market and increased competition their responsibilities are increasing. Its basic function involves planning, preparing and placing of ads. But nowadays agencies are branching out and focusing on advisory services which are traditionally non-advertising in nature such as market research.

The main functions of an Ad Agency in Delhi can be grouped under the following headers:

  • Account Management – Every individual client held by the agency is known as an account to the agency. The number of agency executives assigned to a client depends upon its size with large MNCs getting at least a couple of them while at other times a single account manager is tasked with coordinating with two to three smaller non-competitive companies. Their responsibilities initially include scouting for clients, locating them and negotiating a contract with them. Later their responsibilities involve working closely with those clients to develop their ads ensuring the client’s needs are looked after and their interest’s met. They assist the client in determining ad budget, mode of marketing communication and look after their regular administrative needs ultimately acting as a link between the rest of the ad agency and the client themselves.

    Account-Management-Component
    Account Management Component
  • Creative – These include all the activities which are aimed at creating the actual advertisement or commercial irrespective of medium. The creative team includes artists, designers, script writers, directors who shoot the ad in case of TV advertisements. Their talent levels often determine the success of an ad agency as they are tasked with what is possibly the most important service provided by an ad agency, building the actual ad itself. Their main job is to make sure the advertisement is appealing and attractive and the information the ad wants to convey to its target audience is done in a simple yet interesting manner.

    Advertising-Agency
    Creative Example
  • Market Research – Market Research had established itself as an increasingly important function in today’s competitive corporate world and all ad agencies are being pushed to provide this service as it is useful in more than one phase of a marketing campaign. Firms are using it before the launch of the product to understand buying habits of the target market, level of existing competition present in the market. After launching the campaign market research is used to measure its effectiveness so that additional steps could be taken to improve it. Finally after the campaign had run its course the data collected through marketing research is used to evaluate whether it had successfully achieved its objectives.

    Market-Research-Components
    Market Research components
  • Media Planning – Every advertising medium (newspaper, TV, radio, Internet, etc) has got its own unique set of Pros and Cons and cost and reach constraints. It is important that the ad agency takes the initiative to properly understand the client’s requirements and frame a media plan which suits its needs because it has the potential to make or break a campaign. This activity includes selecting the right media channel for the right marketing tool (same company may use different mediums for advertisement and sales promotion) and determining the media budget for its clients. For example, a local FMCG producer would only end up wasting resources if he buys an ad spot on a national TV channel while a MNC manufacturing FMCG goods would similarly derive little benefit by advertising only over the radio. This shows how media plans can vary to great extents even within the same sector.

    Media-Planning-Components
    Media Planning Components
  • Branding – The main aim of all advertising is to build brand recognition and ensure the true message of the brand connects with the consumer. So one of the long term services that ad agencies are expected to provide is build a brand loyalty among its target market. A coordinated effort between various departments of the ad agency is a must to achieve this. The data collected by the market research department regarding what the target market prefers is in turn used by the creative department to build a suitable, catchy slogan.

    How-to-Develop-a-Brand
    How to Develop a Brand
  • Public Relations – It is one of the ancillary services provided by the ad agencies. It mainly involves maintaining goodwill between the clients and other important stakeholders such as consumers, middlemen, media owners etc. It can be done by organizing media events and sponsorship fairs.

An Indian ad agency which is making great strides is releaseMyAd. It has already become the premier ad agency in Delhi offering a large variety of services such as media planning, media buying and creative designing among others. It offers ad booking over a variety of mediums like newspaper, radio and cinema. To book ads in Delhi across any medium you may email book+delhi@releasemyad.com or you can also call 09830629298.

Factors to consider while selecting an Ad Agency in Delhi

Selecting-the-right-Ad-Agency

Selecting the right ad agency is important for all sorts of organization because unlike other business associates they are not just mere suppliers; but they act as strategic and creative partners for the company hiring them. Agency selection might seem like a difficult task because different agencies focus on different elements (account management, creative function, media buying) or different industries (healthcare, education). These are however certain factors which should be analyzed and evaluated before an ad agency is chosen in Delhi.

Ad-Agency-Selection-Factors
Ad Agency Selection Factors
  1. Objectives – A marketer needs to figure out what is his main objective behind employing an ad agency, whether the services he needs is mainly creative in nature or he is focusing on account management etc. The choice is made accordingly, after understanding the level of expertise of the agency in those fields and its overall capabilities. It is of utmost importance to understand how the agency would help the organization to achieve those goals as the whole professional relationship hinges on completion of said objectives.
  2. Agency Size and Experience – The size and experience are important determinants while selecting an agency. The experience suggests that the agency is stable and has enough know-how about the sector it mainly concentrates on. The size on the other hand informs the marketer whether his account would get the desired attention he wants. Selecting the largest ad agency may not always be the most viable strategy for most marketers as they tend to be too expensive and may not devote sufficient attention to smaller accounts as it won’t prove to be that profitable.

    Choosing-the-right-Ad-Agency
    Choosing the right Ad Agency
  3. Industry Expertise – This is a dual-edged sword as it is important to hire an agency which has got an understanding as to how the industry or sector operates. But at the same time if an agency mainly focuses on one particular industry, then there is a high probability that it would also represent a competitor which might give way to conflict of interest issues. So it is crucial to find an agency with adequate know-how about the sector but at the same time it should be able to differentiate the marketer’s brand from its competitors in case they are representing both.
  4. Creativity – It is good to have a clear idea of how the agency is going to cooperate with its client on creative matters. If the agency is just going to take the brief from its client and create the campaign from scratch or whether the client would be involved in the creative process every step of the way. Any potential client would do well to check on any previous awards the agency might have won to judge how efficient it is at managing a sizable marketing campaign.

    Survey-showing-factors-behind-Agency-Selection
    Survey showing factors behind Agency Selection
  5. Alignment of Business Principles – It’s not enough for an agency to offer a strategic or a creative solution to a problem but they are also expected to share the same vision regarding the brand as its client. So it’s important the agency and the marketer’s corporate and cultural personality are compatible with each other.

Besides the above mentioned factors it is also important for the agency to be adaptable as business environment changes continuously, committed to the campaign and be technically proficient and innovative.

Steps-in-selecting-Ad-Agency
Steps in selecting Ad Agency

An Indian ad agency which is making great strides is releaseMyAd. It has already become the premier ad agency in Delhi offering a large variety of services such as media planning, media buying and creative designing among others. It offers ad booking over a variety of mediums like newspaper, radio and cinema. To book ads in Delhi across any medium you may email book+delhi@releasemyad.com or you can also call 09830629298.