How to choose an advertising agency in Lahore

Lahore has agencies of every size, thousands of freelancers, and a growing number of marketplace sellers who offer a logo, a post set or a video for a quick turnaround. All of them can do good work. The hard part is knowing which fits your job, particularly if you sell to foreign buyers who judge you before they have spoken to you.

This guide gives you a way to compare, a checklist, red flags, ten questions, and a method for comparing proposals.

Prepare before you contact anyone

Write one page an agency can answer:

• The problem. “Buyers abroad treat us like a small trader” is more useful than “we need a better brand”.
• The audience. Domestic customers, overseas buyers, distributors, or all three.
• What exists. Logos, photos, a profile, past campaigns, what you liked.
• The scope. Identity, campaign, content, website, catalogue, film.
• Languages. English, Urdu, or both, and any other.
• The timeline, and what is driving it, such as a trade fair or a buyer visit.
• The approver. One person who decides.

For a template, see how to brief a creative agency.

Agency, freelancer or marketplace seller

Freelancer. One person, direct contact, flexible. Strong for a clear, bounded task. Check what happens if they are unavailable, and whether they can cover writing, design and production or only one.

Marketplace seller. Fast to hire and easy to start. Quality varies a lot, so ask for samples that are close to your job, read the terms about usage and file delivery, and understand what a revision means in that listing.

Agency. A team and a process across strategy, design, content and production. You pay for coordination and cover. Ask who will be on your account, and whether the person you meet is the person doing the work.

None of these is automatically better. Choose on the shape of your job. A single logo and a year of content need different providers.

What to check

Relevance of the work. Not the same sector, but the same kind of challenge. Ask what the brief was, what the provider did and what changed.

The English and Urdu. If you sell abroad, English quality matters as much as design. Ask who writes your English and who reads it before it goes out. For Urdu, ask the same. Have a native reader check both. Weak copy looks careless to a buyer in another country.

Credibility for foreign buyers. An exporter’s materials are compared with those of businesses everywhere. Ask whether the provider has made profiles, catalogues or product images for overseas buyers. Our guide to company profiles for Pakistani exporters covers what to include.

Originality. Ask how the work is made. If a logo or layout could be sold to a thousand other businesses, it was probably a template.

Terms. Deliverables listed, rounds of revision stated, payment stages clear, ownership written down.

Ownership of files and accounts

This is where problems appear late, so settle it early.

• Source files. Editable design files, not just JPEGs or PDFs. Without them, any change means starting again.
• Fonts. Ask which fonts are used and whether they are licensed for your use. Check the licence terms with the font owner.
• Accounts. Social pages, ad accounts and domain names should be registered to your business, with the agency added as a manager.
• Content library. Photos, footage and finished edits should be handed over on request or at the end.

Red flags

• A price offered before any conversation about scope.
• Work that looks like a lightly altered template, or the same layout in every portfolio piece.
• Files promised only as images, with no editable sources.
• The agency holding the ad account, page or domain in its own name.
• Big claims with no case behind them, such as promised results.
• English copy that reads like a literal translation.
• Vague deliverables: “branding” or “social media” with no list.
• Pressure to pay in full before any work is shown.
• Reluctance to let you speak to a past client.
• No questions about your business.

Ten questions to ask

1. Who will work on our account, and who is accountable?
2. What do you need from us in the first two weeks?
3. What would you change about our brief?
4. Who writes and checks the English and the Urdu?
5. Which parts do you do yourselves?
6. How many concepts and revision rounds are included?
7. Which files do we receive, and who owns them from when?
8. Which accounts will be registered in our name?
9. How do you report, and how often?
10. What is not included in this proposal?

How to compare proposals

Send every provider the same brief and the same deadline for questions. Lay the proposals in rows: deliverables, rounds, timeline, team, languages, files, accounts, payment stages. Ignore totals until the rows match. A blank cell is a question, not a promise. Look at how each provider handled your questions before the pitch, since that tells you how the work will go. When your job includes product images, our guide to product photography cost in Pakistan lists what to put in the brief.

Talk to CREATVZ

We work with Pakistani businesses from our Lahore page, on brand identity and product photography for exporters and online stores. Send your brief through the start a project form, and we reply with questions and a scope that lists exactly what is included and which files and accounts are yours.