No, not that sort of traffic!

The modern advertising agency is constructed of a number of distinct, specialist departments working together (supposedly) to provide the full service to their clients, and there are generally six*. The Creative Department, The Media Department, Account Services (Account Management, Executives or 'Bag Handlers' as we rudely and totally unjustifiably use to call them.) The Accounts Department, Planners and the oft forgotten but all-important Traffic Department

So what exactly does the Traffic Department do?

Whilst all the other departments are very much 'front of house' (except perhaps the Accounts Department) Traffic is in the background pulling all the strings, coordinating all the work, making sure that everyone is doing what they are supposed to be doing, on time, at the right price, and ensuring that all those newspapers, TV and Radio stations have received their 'copy' within the deadline and in the required format.

The Traffic Department role is to keep track of the many stages of all work, not only to guarantee it's successful 'delivery' but also to allow anyone, internally or the client, to have an instant 'status report' - and no doubt without their 'policing' of the agency's workload, pandemonium would ensue and the agency could fall apart rather quickly.

Deadlines would be missed, work would be produced in incorrect formats, budgets would fly out of the windows and grumpy clients would very quickly be leaving in droves. Not good business.

So to avoid all this upset and, much to the annoyance of all the other departments, we have the Traffic Department to tell everyone what they should or shouldn't be doing - and when and how to do it.

Traffic work (once confusingly called 'Production') requires total focus and thoroughness, carefully detailed schedules, close dealings with suppliers, media production departments, strict overseeing of deadlines (often to the hour) and a regular reporting to the client of the existing status (in both time and money).

And a good Traffic person should have one other important skill; the ability to see problems before they happen, identify any nasty that may come out of the woodwork, make allowances for incorrect or less than accurate information and build in contingency plans, just in case!

Mistakes can be extremely costly.

* There may be other departments in larger agencies such as, of course, Online as well as Research, Digital, Marketing and even Vouchers - and we sometimes see extraordinary 'big willy' titles that are really the same old thing (i.e. Global Communications Solutions). Hmm.