The job description and responsibilities of an advertising coordinator vary greatly depending on the company and its size. In smaller businesses, advertising coordinators may be given more responsibilities serving in multiple supervisory roles, or “wearing many hats.” A person in this position at a smaller agency or company, for example, may be both the art director and the coordinator. Advertising coordinators, on the other hand, primarily support marketing efforts and bring projects together keeping everything on track and paying attention to the details.
In many ways, advertising coordinators are project managers in disguise. They bring together various project activities from various departments to ensure that a marketing project is completed on time and with all of its components intact. An advertising coordinator, like a project manager, is typically expected to follow up with clients and prepare reports on the strengths and weaknesses of the final products, or deliverables, to be used as data for future projects.
Advertising coordinators may gather information from the sales department about what is needed for a trade show brochure or other marketing materials and bring it to a copywriter and art director. They may then be in charge of overseeing the printing and production process, as well as possibly approving the final copy. An advertising coordinator is typically a supervisor who reports to either a senior account executive or a creative director, or both.
The coordinator may be in charge of supervising marketing assistants who are tasked with completing promotional tasks. Advertising coordinators are frequently tasked with writing and distributing memos to various departments or branch offices. Other advertising coordinator responsibilities could include working on a computer every day to edit marketing materials or checking the use of images for legal reasons. Advertising coordinators usually respond to clients’ questions via email and phone when communicating with them. Clients may also communicate with coordinators in person, particularly during group meetings at the advertising agency.
Many advertising coordinators are tasked with compiling market research data as well as graphs or charts for promotional campaigns. An advertising coordinator may collaborate with a company’s sales department to complete print or online marketing copy projects. He or she may be in charge of overseeing the necessary work being done junior staff, such as fact-finding and data entry.
Some coordinators may be in charge of selling advertising space. This could be done in print, on the web, or on television. The ad space may be for a trade publication in the client’s industry, depending on the company.