"I think that we should have a television department. All the other agencies have them." Harry Crane, Mad Men.
When it comes down to advertising for TV - gone are the glory years. I think it’s fair to say we are not all able to afford our own TV department. Of course, there are still some Sterling Cooper-esque advertising agencies, with in-house TV departments to look after TV clients and subsequent advertising requirements. For agencies with a hefty roster of TV work, this makes perfect sense.
Problems can arise however, if those agencies were to lose a large TV account or the work dried up. There would still be the expense of running the department alongside staffing and associated costs, which could become a financial drain. The reality is that either the department closes, making staff redundant, or the agency tries to ride-out the period whilst trying to secure new TV accounts.
This can become a yo-yo situation for some agencies, as the cost of running the department in the downtime may need to be recovered in the better times, making agency recharge fees sometimes at a slightly inflated rate.
