report of visit to ankit advertisor, udaipur

1. DATE: 16/04/2016
PRACTICAL NO. 4
REPORT
ON
VISIT TO ADVERTISING AGENCY
Objective:
 To study the functioning and organizational set up of advertising agency
 To get information about the different departments and their role and
responsibility with in the ad agency.
 To acquaint with different services provided by an ad agency and strategies
followed to ensure its sustainability.
Date of visit: 16 April, 2016
Agency visited: Ankit advertiser
Address: Shop No. 003, Circle View Complex, near Sukhadiya Circle, New
Fatahpura, Udaipur
Type of Agency: Proprietary based
Owner Name: Mr. Rajeev Murdia
Person interacted during visit: Mr. Rajeev Murdia
Software used for designing: Corel draw
Under the Ph.D. course program HECM 625 Advertising and Marketing
Communication, a visit to ad agency was conducted under the guidance to Dr.
Snehlata Maheshwari, Professor, College of Home Science, MPUAT, Udaipur. The
agency visited was Ankit Advertising agency, located near Sukhariya Circle, New
Fatehpura in Udaipur city. The main purpose of visiting the agency was to get a
practical exposure and acquaint ourself with the structure of an ad agency, its
function and management, different departments/ divisions, their role and
responsibility etc.

2. In the discussion with Rajeev Murdia, he told us about the company’ background,
its function and services provided to clients. The Ankit advertiser have been running
from last 27 years (established in 1990) and since then, the company is providing
multiple range of services to its clients within Udaipur and outside the Udaipur
(Jaipur, Jodhpur, Gujarat etc.) with great deal of satisfaction. The agency take
advertisement for different local and national newspapers such as Rajasthan Patrika,
Danik Bhashkar, Rashtra doot Navjyoti, Pratha Kaal, Punjab Kesari, The Economics
Times, Times of India, The Hindu, Sandesh, Gujarat Samachar and many more and
is providing its services through it. The advertising agencies have annual contract
with several corporate companies, educational institutes and private businesses.
Process of Advertisement publishing
In order to publish the ad in newspaper, client first contact the advertising agency
either face to face, via telephone or e-mail. Client tells specification about the ad to be
published, size of advertisement and date of publishing and the newspaper in which
the ad will be published. Then advertising agency designs the ad as per given
specification and send it to the client for further correction and approval. After
approval of the design, the client used to pay money for the ad. The advertising
agency sends the ad to respective newspaper with a release order. Release order is a
document which an advertising agency sends to the newspaper organization with the
design of ad, without R.O. newspaper will not publish the ad. R.O. contains
information regarding name of the client, size of ad, date and newspaper of
publishing, rate of advertisement and signature of the owner.
Organizational composition
Organizational set up of Ankit advertising agency was very small. The agency had
total five personnel who are responsible for different activities. The different
personnel of the agency include – the owner, designer, accountant and two field staff.
Designer was assigned with the role of designing ads as per the client requirements
like black and white or colour and in varying size. He prepares the rough layout, also
does the proof reading, grammatical correction, prepare the caption etc. Field staff is
responsible for providing the bills to the respective client and he is also responsible
for building and maintaining contact with the client’s. The accountant is responsible
for maintaining proper accounts, billing and maintenance of register of dues from

3. the clients, verifying whether the advertisement in the different media actually
appeared on the days it was scheduled, if so whether correctly, and whether the text
was properly printed and also looking after all the routine matters relating to account
keeping. The manager or the owner has the overall administrative responsibility for
the organization. He is responsible for establish and maintain contact with the
potential clients and the agencies as well as providing the good working environment
to the employee. He used to make strategies for retaining clients and takes all crucial
decision for the agency.
Functioning and services:-
The working hour of the agency was morning 10 to evening 6 for all other staff
excluding owner. The owner of the agency used to be in the office till 7:30 pm. Owner
also used to receive ads after working hours. Agency mainly provides services related
to designing and ensure publishing of newspaper ads. The owner of the company
further acquainted us that the concept of ad designing is same for every newspaper
and mainly two aspects is most important in layout of ad viz. size and placement.
Size- the cost of the ad depends on its size. Advertisement sizes vary from small (4*
3) to full page advertising.
Appeal- the second factor is appeal, the design of an ad should attract the attention
of a reader at a single glance and the third factor is placement of ad in the newspaper,
either it is placed in front page, back, or in middle, or in classified.
Placement- The placement of the ad means where the ad has been kept on
newspaper either on first page or any other page.
Owner of the agency told, there are three major categories of newspaper ads:
i. Commercial ads: ads which are published with the news stories. Their cost
is more than the other ads. There is a dead line up to 4 o’clock for national
newspaper and upto 5 o’clock for local newspaper if the ad has to publish next
day.

4. ii. Ads in classified display: it includes all the advertisement that are to be
published on a specific page named “classified”. There is a dead line up to 5
o’clock for national newspaper and up to 6 o’clock for local newspaper if the
ad has to publish next day.
iii. Obituary ads: these ads include information related to death and death
ceremony. There was no specific deadline for receiving these types of ads.
Cost of publishing ads: The cost ads vary depending upon the newspaper to
newspaper. The cost for ads in Dainik Bhaskar cost were as follow
 Commercial ads: Rs. 515 per square centimeter.
 Ads in classified display: Rs. 227 per square centimeter + scheme of
publishing 2 ads free of cost with 2 ads. These ads can be published on
different dates as per the client wish.
 Obituary ads: their cost was minimum i.e. Rs. 100 per square centimeter
The agency was designing different types of ad for different clients like commercial
ads, ad for corrigendum, tender notices, ad for obituary, ad for entertainment,
institutional ads, ad for electronic media and many more.
Other services offered by the agency includes:-
 Ankit advertiser also design ads services for local TV channels like 24 hour
channel, Aradhna channel and sky channel.
 For radio advertisement the ad company used to prepare jingles of short
duration for the FM radio channel.
 The agency was not providing any services related to outdoor advertising.
Though the agency also used to design ads like radio jingles and TV ads but their
demand was less in the city and less number of clients who want such ads. Owner
told us that radio jingle in FM cost around Rs. 7 per second.
Financial Plan of agency
For each advertisement the agency used to receive a commission from the respective
newspaper. The commission of the agency was 15 per cent of total cost of the
advertisement.

5. The owner told us that in order to retain its clients, agency also provide certain
discount to its client which vary from 2 – 13 per cent. There is a very tough
competition in the market. There are total 11 advertising agencies are in Udaipur.
They used to retain customer by providing good services, maintaining relations and
providing discount. For example the agency was providing 13 per cent discount to
our university from last eight years.
Designing tips for newspaper ads
Tips for designing of ads as given by Mr. Murdia were as follows:
 It should have eye catchy caption.
 It should have full product details.
 It should not mislead the audience.
 It should not contain any ambiguous information.
Further details of the product i.e. the last name, address, affiliation with logo, contact
information should be included in the ad.
Consideration for establishing a news advertising agency
The owner told us that if we want to establish a new advertising agency than we have
to contact the newspaper firm and they will give us certain target of covering some
space. And on completion of the target only they will provide commission to the
agency. If the new agency remains fail in fulfilling the target, then no commission
will be given to new ad agency by newspaper.
Conclusion
Visiting the advertising agency was very learning for us. We got lots of practical
information with the owner of the advertising agency Mr. Rajeev Murdia. He had a
huge experience in this field and had a very good nature. Studying theoretically about
ad agency and practically visiting the agency and seeing the functioning was a new
experience for all of us. We came to know that in the small ad agencies the roles and
responsibilities are overlapping and there in not a formal hierarchal structure.

6. Advertising is a very creative as well as challenging field; we have to use our
imagination in a best possible way to deliver the quality product to the client. Also
traits like patience, good communication skills, simple nature, administrative
capability, leadership, quick decision making and adaptation with changes are
essential skills which is required for better management of an ad agency.