Several Of The Major Advertising Agencies In The United States

All the leading advertising companies used to be headquartered in The Big Apple, along popular Madison Avenue in the center of Manhattan’s financial district. If you watch the HBO show Mad Men (since picked up by some other network in syndication) you will observe the fictional characters being employed at fictional firms on Madison Avenue, thus the term “Mad” Men. In the 50s and 60s the major advertising agencies were all operated by males and it was a complete boy’s club that women were not allowed to enter, except as assistants or receptionists. These gentlemen chain smoked at their workstations all day long and drank very much every night while wining and dining clients at elegant dining places and pubs.

Those times are gone and many are grateful for that, specifically ladies and minorities who nowadays play a much bigger role in today’s top advertising firms. Things have changed dramatically within the last two decades. Graphic Designers were always treated like technical flunkies and were usually not given the chance to rise above Art Director status. All of the Creative Directors (CDs) came from the copywriting departments and the moment you’re a CD, you could possibly hope to make partner or V.P. with a few years of extremely long hours and hard work below your belt.

Today’s major advertising companies are ones that have made it through in the period of the internet and have adapted their services to suit the cyber world’s big demands. Thirty years ago ad firms didn’t even have computers. Typesetting was accomplished by hand with press on type that you purchased at the Art supplies store. Typefaces were limited and you must be very careful that you did not screw up or else you had to start all over again. Lord forbid that the Account Executive or perhaps the customer changed the headline at the last minute. Deadlines were extremely tight in the former days and you needed to manually crank out 50 to 100 advertisements in a single day (and all night) for delivery the next morning to the newspapers.

Of course these days all the top advertising firms have cutting edge computers, mostly Mac but several PCs too. The employed small armies of Graphic Designers who make use of software like InDesign and Photoshop CS.

Most of the major advertising firms now also carry out online ads and that shows that the artists have to have proficiency in HTML, Flash, Dreamweaver, as well as other site building software. By being so technical several of the artistic side of the craft has surely suffered. But because the airwaves are slammed and stuffed with so many visuals and loud attention hogging banners, the leading advertising agencies have to be a little more imaginative than previously in their attempt to acquire their client’s message through to their target viewers. The majority of advertising campaigns cost a great deal that the ad agencies utilize focus groups to receive responses before spending any money.

Despite the fact that techniques and technologies have developed over time, the goal of leading advertising agencies around the globe have stayed the same and that is sell more products for their clients.

Social Media Marketing is indeed a very good technique to enhance brand awareness, opportunities and product sales of your business via social media channels as well as by doing visual demonstrations such as Video Marketing, which induces attention about the organization and its offerings.