Bangalore agency becomes first Indian ad firm to get ISO 9001:2000

Bangalore-based advertising agency, Adverto, has earned the distinction of becoming India’s first full-service advertising firm to get the ISO 9001:2000 certification.

Kenneth Menzies, Adverto's chairman and creative director, says, “Based on the information received from our certification agency BVQI, the world leader in quality standards and certification, we have been given to understand that Adverto is the first full-service advertising agency in India and only the third in the world to have been awarded an ISO 9001:2000 certification.”

The certification pertains to Adverto's range of services, including advertising, design, communications, print and media solutions. The agency was set up in 1986 and has clients from sectors such as real estate, hospitality, healthcare and retail in Bangalore.

Menzies adds, “Ten months back, when we started planning for an ISO certification, most people wondered about its relevance in the advertising industry. What they forget is that advertising, as any other service industry, is driven by processes.”

“With a quality control system in place, we ensure that our creative process is in perfect sync with other functions such as marketing, client servicing, account and media planning, vendor selection and such. This will give our clients more value and make our relationship a more enduring one.”

Advertising, as any other service industry, he continues, is highly process-driven with dynamic inputs occurring all the time. “However, in most agencies, the pressure of time and the need to meet deadlines often results in the bypassing of critical processes and procedures.”

The ISO-compliant system deployed at Adverto, backed by the agency's proprietary software, Legacy, ensures that no job can go through without the mandatory approval gateways, thereby assuring quality at every stage in every job. The software tracks an assignment through its complete job cycle – right from the briefing and ideation, copy & design, review, media release, production/printing and finally, payment.

“With such a quality control system in place, Adverto makes sure that its creative process is in perfect sync with other functions like marketing, client servicing, accounts and media planning, vendor selection and such,” Menzies adds.

Further, the legacy empowers the process by moving it away from being people-dependant to being process and systems driven. Thereby, if any employee were to be on leave, the job is always on schedule, sans any communication gap with its unique tracking capability. “Thanks to the process, every job is a signature of Adverto’s excellence and commitment to each of its clients,” he adds.

Perry Menzies, the agency's managing director, says, “The greatest challenge we faced in ensuring quality across the agency was addressing all departmental jobs and their interaction with others. Our real-time job tracking software, designed in-house, keeps human errors to the minimum and maintains the process flow up to the mark for any given job. It also takes care of consistent quality from vendors, timely dispatch of publication material and raising of bills.”

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