Differentiation and Ad Agencies

The more I research the advertising industry, the more and more I run into a glaring problem: differentiation. Just how the heck can an advertising agency differentiate itself from its competitors?


This is almost always a tough question when it comes to businesses. The most simplistic answer is to find a niche for yourself and then go about generating a gimmick or selling point to further set yourself apart; or alternatively utilize a unique and engaging marketing strategy your competitors aren't.

However advertising agencies don't tend to actually advertise themselves and in an industry that's going to grow around 14% in the next 10 years, newcomers in the already crowded market might find themselves on the ropes pretty quickly if they don't specialize.
The 'funny' part of this is that the problem of differentiation doesn't quite apply to smaller agencies. For the most part, startups tend to specialize in things like mobile or social media marketing and/or advertising, allowing them to fight a smaller number of other small agencies for niche penetration.

Does a small business good. Photo from coherecommunity.com

The problem with advertising agency differentiation instead lies with the bigger agencies and studios where the only differences they tend to have (from a prospective clients perspective) is their website and previous/ existing clientele. Obviously if you have the personel, resources, and skillsets to create a great ad campaign for nearly any medium, the only way you can really set yourself aside is your portfolio... however your customers and clients effectively control your portfolio (to an extent).

The solution in this scenario rests not upon your imposed corporate culture or attitude (still in dime a dozen), but in your agencies story and personel branding. Your companies story will most likely differ from other companies, studios, agencies, etc and can be a great way to appear not only trustworthy and transparent to potential clients; but entertain and engage them.
Your company and its employees have stories to tell that are different from everyone else's and are a great way to help differentiate your ad agency from competitors. It makes your company seem more 'real' and relatable.

To further drive this home, adage has rolled out a brand-new tool called lookbook to help agencies share their stories. It's sort of a miniature splash page, but it has the bonus of acting as a directory for ad agencies and is integrated into the adage.com website.

Telling a story isn't the ultimate key to differentiating your ag agency from the competition, but for larger agencies, it can certainly help.


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Posted in: advertising, branding, marketing