In their own words: How new ad agencies call themselves. Analysis of their organic positioning and web pages

Abstract

Advertising lacks an agreed definition. Three meanings currently coexist: (1) advertising as a synonym for classic or conventional advertising, that is, design and placement of ads in mass and paid media; (2) advertising as one of the marketing communication techniques using paid, owned, and earned media; (3) advertising as a generic term to refer to all marketing communication. An analysis of the organic positioning and the web pages of the main Spanish advertising agencies has been performed in order to quantify the mentions of advertising and reveal the definition implied in the discourse. The results show that agencies privilege a narrow interpretation of advertising, equate it with traditional paid mass media advertising, differentiate it from other traditional marketing communication tools such as public relations, and use other terms to refer to new forms of persuasive communication. The advertising business has responded to the turf battles between the disciplines of marketing communication, to the competitive pressure of the new technological agents and to the bad image of advertising, by recovering its central core, creativity, as a new generic name for its service.