One can observe different types of individuals with diverse educational backgrounds being employed at advertising agencies in Sri Lanka. The bottom line seems to be that if you are talented, your background does not matter.
Since there is a demand for advertisments in all three major languages (i.e. Sinhala, English & Tamil), advertising agencies in Sri Lanka hire employees who are fluent in these languages. Hence, unlike the rest of corporate Sri Lanka, advertising does not demand fluency in English alone.
Advertising is one business in Sri Lanka in which the numer of men and women hired seems equal. It is also interesting to note that most leading advertising agencies in Sri Lanka are being headed by females.
The main departments of advertising agencies in Sri Lanka include:
The creative department
The production department
Client services department
Traffic department
The Creative department
It is in the creative departmetnt that the actual advertisments are given birth. The employees in this department include creative teams comprising copywriters and art directors who are considered as the “genius” behind the advertising magic. In the advertising agencies in Sri Lanka it is these copywriters and art directors who generate creative ideas for the advertisment or campaign.
The art director and copywriter generally report to the creative director, who is, usually someone who has been engaged in creatives with several years of experience in the field. The creative teams in the advertising agencies in Sri Lanka could be permanent partnerships or formed on a needs basis for individual projects.
In order to develop and give life to their ideas, these creative departments of the advertising agencies in Sri Lanka usually have to avail the services provided by design or production studios from outside. Creative departments also tend to engage the services of production artists for operations and maintenance.
The Production department
The production department is also known as the ‘creative services’ department and usually plays second fiddle to the creative department in advertising agencies in Sri Lanka.
Although not ‘creative genius’ themselves, the employees of the production deparmtments of the advertising agenices in Sri Lanka are those who have the actual contacts with the suppliers of various creative media. In short, it is they who set the ball rolling for the ideas created by the creative department.
Generally, the production department is also in a position to advise upon and negotiate with third parties such as printers etc. The production departments of the advertising agencies in Sri Lanka also function as go betweens with the client and the media agency when dealing with the major media such as the broadcast media and the print media.
Client services department
The client services department of advertising agenices in Sri Lanka are also known as ‘account services’ or ‘account management’ departments. The client services deparment could be considered the sales arm of the advertising agency.
The client services executive of the department convenes a meeting with the client initially to determine the sales goals and creative strategy to be employed in the particular advertisment/ advertising campaign. It then becomes the responsibility of the client service executive to coordinate with the employees of the creative and production departments who would be invovlved in the particular advertisement/ advertising campaign. The client services executive in charge of the particular project is expected to keep the relevant client updated on the progress of the advertisment through the creative process and obtain his feedback.
Once the creative work for the advertisement/ advertising campaign is completed, it becomes the duty of the client services executive to ensure the production of the advertisment and its placement in the relevant media.
raffic department
While both creative and client servcing work may be handled by the same employee in smaller advertising agencies in Sri Lanka, the bigger advertising agenices in Sri Lanka opt to have specialists in individual fields employed at their organizations. Larger advertising agencies in Sri Lanka hire people who specialize in creative work, production work, internet advertising, research etc.
Though not regarded with the same amount of prominance as the aforementioned departments, the ‘traffic department’ provides an important function in the advertising agecies in Sri Lanka. It is the ‘traffic department’ of the advertising agencies in Sri Lanka that regulates the flow of work in house.
The bigger advertising agencies in Sri Lanka could have a traffic department with as big as ten or more employees.
The traffic department is usually headed by a system administrator who is also known as a ‘traffic manager’. It is the traffic department that has the power to increase an advertising agency’s efficiency and profitability by reducing the following:
reduction of false job starts
inappropriate job initiation
incomplete information sharing
incorrect cost estimation
need for media extensions
Usually the smaller advertising agencies in Sri Lanka does not have a dedicated traffic manager or a traffic department. In these instances one employee maybe assigned the responsibility of managing the workflow, gathering cost estimates etc.
It must be kept in mind that all advertising is not the products of advertising agencies and some Sri Lankan companies still produce and plan their own work in house. However, advertising has become big business in Sri Lanka today with advertising agencies in Sri Lanka providing multiple services such as marketing, branding and sales promotion to its clients. The advertising agencies in Sri Lanka could be hired to produce anything from a single advertisment for the television/ radio/ newspaper to an ongoing series of advertisments in a full drawn out advertising campaign.
The clientele of the Advertising agencies in Sri Lanka include not only business and corporations, but also non-profit and government organizations. Also popularly seen are the campaigns that are assigned to advertising agencies in Sri Lanka during times of government elections in the country.