Aquarius

Aquarius Advertising Agency Case Analysis

1) The environment that the company is operating in could be defined as unpredictable. There is a “rapid turnover in the major accounts handled by the agency”. In addition to that, it is “typical for the advertising agencies to gain or lose clients quickly, as consumer behavior and lifestyle changes emerged and product innovations occurred”.

One of the main goals of the organization is to increase flexibility in this unpredictable environment. Another firm’s objective is to increase cooperation and communication among specialists from different departments. Those goals could be met through a reorganization of Aquarius Advertising Agency.

The prevailing culture of the organization is customer-oriented. A large number of interactions occur between agency specialists and customers. We can also observe elements of creative culture. One of the account executives defined the culture being more oriented towards creativity and art.

The Aquarius Advertising Agency is a middle-sized firm that offers two basic services to its clients.

The firm doesn’t have a specific technology because of the creative culture.

2) Based on the analysis of the contextual variables, the organization should choose Hybrid Structure. This approach offers flexibility by combining characteristics of different structures. It is best suited for a rapidly changing environment. In order to increase communication and cooperation, each department (copy, art, TV/radio/Internet, research, media, merchandising, newspapers/magazine) will report to each of the account executive and their department’s vice president.

3) Matrix structure will be feasible for Aquarius as well. There are three conditions that should be met. Condition 1: there should be a pressure to share scarce resources across product lines. In our case there is a need to share the resources since the company can’t afford having different department for each of the...