The Small Agency/Client Relationship: The Samll Client’s Perspective Available to Purchase

A study was conducted among small to medium sized advertisers in the midwest United States. The respondents in this study rated local agencies high in overall performance. Agencies received particularly high ratings in the areas of flexibility, creativity, meeting deadlines, and adaptability. Advertisers felt, however, that these agencies were less effective in public relations, research, and understanding a client’s business. These advertisers rated arts and graphics, copy creation, and marketing strategy as key agency functions. They also felt that sales promotion, account handling, and media planning were important functions. They placed less value on public relations, information broker services, TV programming and broadcast creativity. These smaller advertisers wanted agencies to take a leadership role in advertising and to play partnership or counselor roles in the marketing research, marketing strategy, and sales promotion areas. They were less interested in agency involvement for new product planning.