Criteria for selecting an international advertising agencies.

BENJAMIN WILLIE GRAHAM
GIJ LEVEL 300 (WEEKEND)

Very importantly Advertising is a paid message used to promote a product, service or an idea to a specific audience, therefore International advertising refers to advertising which is carried out in multiple countries around the world. Effective international advertising requires specialized cultural knowledge that considers differences between target audiences in different countries. International advertising is considered not only a communication process, but a business activity, an industry and a reflection of society as a whole.

The primary goal of advertising is to effectively communicate with the target audience. The communication process involves multiple aspects which are affected by media, culture, literacy and language. For example, a multinational company that wishes to place newspaper ads will find that their ads will most likely be unsuccessful in countries that have significantly low literacy rates. Additionally, cultural norms and values differ among countries. For example, a television commercial for birth control does not cause concern in many Western countries, while the same ad televised in a conservative Muslim country, such as Saudi Arabia, may be very controversial.

International advertising Agency can also be considered a business practice by which an advertising firm attempts to influence audiences in other countries about itself, and its products and services. Advertising agencies decide whether to create global or regional campaigns that are capable of building a global image about a product or service. Agencies create advertisements and place them in the appropriate media outlets throughout the world.

Indeed there are different types of advertising agencies which have specific functions to operate that would have to be properly be looked at by companies before deciding on what type of agency they would like to work with in the promotion of their products. They may include;

1.      In-House advertising agencies: which believes that they can provide such advertising services to themselves at a lower cost than would be charged by an outside agency.

2.      Interactive agencies: may differentiate themselves by offering a mix of web design/development, search engine marketing, internet advertising/marketing, or e-business/e-commerce consulting.

     3.Search engine agencies: Lately, pay per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) firms have been classified by some as 'agencies' because they create media and implement media purchases of text based (or image based, in some instances of search marketing) ads.

4. And finally the Full-service Advertising Agency in fact this is a method which can save time and labour. This is the advantage for companies who use this method to advertise. The full-service advertising agency has a whole specialist team for its clients.

Example,  Graham Group of Company’s  has just introduced its new product “DUCY PEANUT”  onto the local market and now wants to advertise internationally, the company has numerous international advertising agency to choose from and some of them include;

1. Aegis Group

2. BBDO

3. DDB Worldwide

4. Dentsu

5. Grey Global Group

6. Interpublic Group

7.  Ogilvy & Mather

8. Saatchi & Saatchi

9. TBWA Worldwide

10.WPP Group

However after a careful research, the company finally decided to work with OGILVY & MATHER  for a number of reasons, for instance, Ogilvy & Mather was founded in 1948 by David Ogilvy, as "Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson, & Mather" in Manhattan. The company became a leading worldwide agency by the 1960s. Central to its growth was its strategy of building brands such as American Express, BP, Ford, Barbie, Maxwell House, IBM, Kodak, Nestlé, and Unilever brands Pond's and Dove.

Ogilvy & Mather was built on Ogilvy's principles, in particular, that the function of advertising is to sell and that successful advertising for any product is based on information about its consumer.

Some of the major criterion, which was considered by the board and management of Graham Group of Co. following the company’s decision to advertise the DUCY PENUT in the UK and the US. Theses criterion are as follows;

1.      The MARKET COVERAGE OF OGILVY & MATHER, the Agency has very reputable cliental, such as Nestle, and Unilever Brands Pond’s and Dove American Express, IBM, Adidas and Gillette, therefore the DUCY PEANUTS is projected to make a lot of impact in the UK as well as the US. The most important aspect of the sale is the fact that OGILVY & MATHER market coverage within the two developed countries would increase the market share of “DUCY PEANUTS” within the international market and also compete favorably with the other PEANUT products in the UK and the US.

2.      IMAGE AND REPUTATION OF OGILVY & MATHER, in fact when it comes to the image of the Agency it really commands a lot of respect both in Africa and Ghana in general. Indeed its local partners MMRS have for over the years maintained a high standard with regard with the management of its clients therefore Ogilvy and Mather certainly has a huge impact internationally which stands a greater chance of providing enough mileage for “DUCY PEANUTS” world wide.

3.      BUDGET, Looking specifically at Graham Group of Co. The Board and Management took a critical bird’s eye view of the Budget of the company before deciding to engange the services of Ogilvy and Mather in promoting the “DUCY PEANUTS” in both the UK and the US. The company was certified that its budgetary allocation for the international advertisement of the product was well prepared and which meets the needs of the target of the product.

4.      ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF UK AND USA, economically the two countries will provide a real opportunity for the company’s quest to achieve an important milestone the “DUCY PEANUTS” owing to a number of factors which may include the fact that the two countries are superpowers economically with a GDP and economic revenue rate which creates a real enabling environment for the product to be launched and also make the necessary impact needed to sustain the growth of the company.

5.      SERVICES ON OFFER OTHER BY OGILVY & MATHER, One of the factors that made Graham Group of Co. was their desire to take care of the Marketing strategy, Sales Promotion, the selection of media and finally the public relations aspect for the promotion of the “DUCY PEANUTS” which appears more lucrative and attractive for the company to ignore and for that matter this services are expected to propel speedy sale of the product.

6.      COMMUNICATION AND SUPERVISION, Ogilvy & Mather among other things has corresponding agencies in both the UK and the US which will see to the proper sale and promotion of the “DUCY PEANUTS” in these countries owing to the establishment of a proper internal systems within the market of the products sale and this is expected to check the performance of the “DUCY PEANUTS” in the UK and the US where the company has high hopes of achieving a considerable results.

This criterion which was critically considered by Graham Group of CO is expected to attract more consumers to the products of the company starting with the DUCY PEANUTS which is very attractive to its new market. Therefore OGILVY & MATHER coming on board is supposed to also give room for new innovations to the company’s products internationally.