Advertising & Public Relations: Ad agencies

Need Help?

Ask us!

Why use trade journals?

Trade journal articles usually ...

are written by people who work in or specialize in a particular industry / profession, but are not scholars
provide current news and information about the industry and the companies in it

Library resources

Paid for by the Libraries ...

Winmo from List Partners, Inc This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
VPN Required for Off Campus Access.
If above link does not work when on campus on wireless, use this link
Database of directory-type information on both advertising agencies and companies which advertise. Has media and channel spending data
NOT included in subscription: AdBeat, Creative, WinmoEdge, or WinmoTalk
Redbooks.com was acquired by Winmo in May 2018; their two products were merged in July 2019. Formerly the print publications Standard Directory of Advertising Agencies and Standard Directory of Advertisers.

About finding ad agencies

I need an agency that does PR in Buffalo NY ...
Which agency created this magazine ad?
What agencies does Company XYZ work with?

Finding the ad agency associated with an ad, brand, product or company is sometimes easy, but not always!

Here are some of the variables involved:

Easier	Harder
Consumer product / service	B2B product / service
Company	Brand
Public company	Private company
Large company / brand	Smaller company / brand
Agency that works for company	Agency that created *specific ad*

The categories Easier and Harder are general guidelines only; when you have a mix of these variables, then things get interesting!

In any case, the easy starting point is Redbooks.com, linked immediately below. But don't forget to search in the trade journal databases, too ... especially if you're looking for older information. Next, some problems you may encounter:

No information about your particular brand, only for the brand's parent company
Some companies employ several agencies, and there is no detail about which one does what ...
Some agencies specialize in particular media or functions, or in particular geographic areas

Trade journals

Here are a few journals which regularly report when there is a new contract signed between a company and an ad agency: you'll also find occasional articles in many others.

To do a more systematic, thorough search, use the trade journal databases.

Advertising Age from AdAge.com This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
VPN Required for Off Campus Access.
If above link does not work when on campus on wireless, use this link
Online access to the website of the trade magazine Advertising Age. Includes: current articles and an archive of older issues; and the AdAge DataCenter.

Advertising Age (via Ebsco's Business Source Premier)
Full-text for 1996 - present.
Adweek
- This link opens in a new window
Full-text for February 2003 - present.
Brandweek
Full-text via ProQuest for 1992 - 2011. Absorbed by Adweek in 2011.

Databases for trade journal articles

Some of these databases also contain more than just trade journal articles, some scholarly, some popular, even some newswires. But their strength is in their coverage of the trades.

Here are some tips for searching for information about ad agencies:

company / brand-name and agency: e.g. geico and agency
company / brand-name and campaign: e.g. whitewave foods and campaign
keywords, taglines from ad campaign: e.g. "old spice guy", "real beauty" and dove, geico and "pulled over"

Advertising Age from AdAge.com This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
VPN Required for Off Campus Access.
If above link does not work when on campus on wireless, use this link
Online access to the website of the trade magazine Advertising Age. Includes: current articles and an archive of older issues; and the AdAge DataCenter.
Gale Business Insights from Gale This link opens in a new window
Formerly: Business Insights: Essentials
Searches business journals and magazines, industry reports and encyclopedia articles focusing on company and business information. Indexing 1980-present. Full-text mostly 1990-present.
Formerly: Business Company Resource Center.
Business Source Premier from EBSCO This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Searches business publications; includes company, country, and industry reports. Good coverage of scholarly business publications. Mostly 1984 - present.
In addition to the full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for nearly 1,570 journals. This database contains popular business publications such as Business Week, Forbes, and Harvard Business Review, and hundreds of scholarly, peer-reviewed journals. Also included is Wall Street Words, a dictionary of financial terms, linked directly to words within the citations and full text. Full text backfiles go as far back as January of 1990, while indexing and abstract backfiles go as far back as January of 1984.
Nexis Uni from Lexis Nexis This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
VPN Required for Off Campus Access.
If above link does not work when on campus on wireless, use this link
Full-text sources on current events, business, law, and medicine.
Formerly Lexis Nexis Academic Universe.
It includes regional, national, and international newspapers; magazines; wire services; business publications (trade journals, corporate annual reports, tax sources); legal resources (law reviews, court cases, briefs, federal and state codes); government documents; medical information (medical journals); and reference sources (directories, biographical information). Coverage varies by title; very good coverage from the early 1990s to present, with some coverage as early as the mid-1970s.