Market Research and Advertising Strategy in Portuguese Agencies: Perspectives of Professionals

Abstract

The advertising campaign development process is frequently described in manuals and textbooks. Nevertheless, the empirical perspective gives us a better understanding of the real world. In this study, we tried to understand, to systematize, and to describe the process of research and strategy in advertising agencies. To accomplish this objective we conducted 25 in-depth interviews with advertising agency professionals in Portugal. Cross-analysis of the statements allowed us to identify 5 themes: research done by the client before providing the brief to the agency, client's brief, information gathering done by the agency, brief's discussion inside the agency, and creative brief.

Marketing agency – client relationships: towards a research agenda

“…Yet, Kaynak, Kucukemiroglu and Odabasi (1994) in their study on Turkish advertising agencies, argue for the centrality of personal relationships to the ACR. Cardoso (2007) investigated the campaign planning process in Portugal, distilling it into five themes: client research pre-brief, client brief, agency research, consultation and the creative brief. Finally, Zolkiewski et al (2008) examined the inter-personal and inter-organisational power balances between agencies and their clients within the context of the Greek Advertising industry and discovered various endemic reasons for conflict.…”

Marketing research agency, creative agency and client relationships: a study of relationship tensions

“…Although multiple tensions within the MRA-CA-client relationship have been highlighted at a recent industry conference (Marsdon, 2019), no research has been carried out to investigate how and which tensions occur in this triad and, most importantly, how they can be minimized. Furthermore, past literature has predominantly focused on CAs or clients (Cardoso, 2007;Keegan et al, 2017), limiting our understanding of tensions in triads that also includes MRAs perspective during advertising campaign development. This study addressed this call for more research on tensions in triads (Marsdon, 2019) and addresses the following over-arching research question: RQ.…”