Background

Commonly companies do not produce their own advertising material, but instead acquire the knowledge from advertising agencies. While purchasing advertising services, it was found through past studies that there are multiple criteria in which clients evaluate their alternatives of advertising, however few studies have investigated why and how these specific criteria are influential. Knowing this would increase the understanding of the client- advertising agency relationship and thus increase the potential for successful relationships.

Purpose

The purpose of this research is to explore the criteria that influence the selection of adver- tising agencies. As a result of this purpose, two research questions were developed in order to better target suitable findings.

Method

To best answer the research questions, an interpretive, abductive and exploratory research were conducted in order for the researchers to find further knowledge upon the previous existing theory. With this, nine semi-structured interviews were done with experienced deci- sion makers of selecting advertising agencies. The data retrieved was then analysed through categories and then cross-referenced to find emerging relational patterns.

Conclusion

What this study found was that the most important criteria, while evaluating advertising agencies, was criteria surrounding the need for personal chemistry, competency, references, referrals, past experience, size of agency and geographical proximity.