Departments and Organizational Structure of A

dvertising Agency

Lecture by Dr. G.C. Prem Nivas

Why you need an organizational structure
• Advertising agency must have a suitable internal organizational structure to keep
functioning properly with a smooth workflow.

• When an advertising agency decides to establish its organizational structure, it

must ask itself important questions like:

• What is the suitability and requirement of a department?

• How the span of control should be within an agency?
• Is there any mechanism or provision to make communication and coordination
more effective within the organization? etc.
• All advertising agencies don't have a same organizational structure.
• Their structure varies from one another. It is so, since, all organizations are
unique, and their objectives, requirements, functional areas and specialized
departments are not common.
• Board of Directors is a top administrative body of the XYZ advertising agency.
• The President or General Manager is its head.
• The Vice President of Marketing Services looks after its Media, Research and
Sales Promotions.
• The Vice-President of Management and Finance manages its Finance
Department and Office Management (Personal, Records, and Public Relations.)
• The Vice-President of Creative Services takes care of its Copy Art, Production (TV
and Radio, Press, etc.) and Traffic.
• The Vice-President of Accounting Services handles its Account Supervisors and
Account Executives.
• With expansion and growth, the organizational structure of advertising agency
becomes complicated. Small Agencies usually have a simple structure compared
to giant ones who have ample funds and resources to carry out their large and
growing operations in the field of advertising.
 Account Management

ACCOUNT MANAGER
Allocating resources
Communication skills and effective man management skills.
They get business, research, creative people for execution.
Media plan
Approval from client
Agency spoke’s person
Billing
Forecast income
 ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
• See’s day today activities.
• Scheduling
• Delivering
• Monitoring and reporting
• Asst. executive
 Media Dept.
• Delivering the message to large audience.
• Negotiating rates
• Monitoring the appearance
 Creative dept.
• Creative director – approves all the work,
• Visualizers
• Directors – art dept – come up with ideas
• Execution to final product,
• Prepare layouts
 Research Dept.
• Collecting and analysing information
• Develops strategy
• Screens research findings
• Consumer attitudes and behavior
• Copy testing
Office Management
 Administration Dept.
• Prompt payment of bills