ABSTRACT
Advertising agencies, as well as digital marketing agencies, are hired to prepare creative concepts for advertising and other forms of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC). Most agencies are organized into creative departments consisting of teams with creative directors, art directors, and copywriters. Art directors concentrate on brand images, photography, and video production, while copywriters focus on the words used for every type of media. Creative directors are responsible for combining both functions and making final decisions.
Advertising message planning begins a brand brief. This is a single-page document with a summary of the target audience for a brand, purchase motivations, estimated media budget, desired media strategies, and important marketing considerations. The agency’s creative team must then select the most appropriate and relevant creative message strategy for the brand before generating ideas and concepts. These creative strategies include demonstrations, comparisons, humor, straight sell, factual, scientific, technical, slice-of-life, testimonials, celebrity, announcer, historical, animation, dramatization, spokesperson, fantasy, vignette, and storytelling.
Creative concepts are presented to advertisers using four basic formats: copy and layout, storyboards, scripts, and wireframes. Magazines, newspapers, and printed materials are shown using a visual arrangement of images and words, called copy and layout. Ideas for television commercials and video productions are illustrated with a storyboard. Scripts are typed words and instructions on a single page to describe radio ads and audio podcasts. Wireframes are used exclusively for website designs and other digital media platforms, except social media. The final production of advertising and IMC materials is based on these presentation formats. However, the content must be approved by the advertiser, legal experts, and other corporate departments or the owner of the business. Suppliers, such as film producers, photographers, and digital consultants, are hired by the agency to assist with completion of creative material.
