As I sat in a creative review yesterday watching the Account Planner assigned to the project just sitting there, saying little and adding nothing I thought back to the briefing…which also relegated the planner to the background, leaving him in a position to simply parrot the points in the brief. Points that had been originally developed by the account team before he polished it. Or at least that’s what he was supposed to have done.
My problem with planners goes farther than this young gentleman.
For every planner that functions as nothing more than a researcher who fine-tunes the wording of the briefs that the account team initially develops, there are the good planners that come up with the fantastically complex and cutting-edge strategies. These planners are just as responsible as the researchers for the uselessness of the function.
I am not alone in feeling this way. Ad Contrarian notes that Account Planning is responsible both for the brain drain on the account side and the rise of the discipline correlates with the loss of confidence by clients that agencies can provide effective strategic guidance.
There are two reasons that Account Planning is killing strategy.
First, planners or either glorified researchers who don’t add anything or they are strategic glory hunters whose incentives are geared toward the newest, shiniest, cleverest, impress-your-friends strategies. Only with something that really pop out as shockingly original will they move up, which means that they are driven, if only to further their careers, to push the boundaries for pushing boundaries’ sake.
I am all about originality, of course, but not in self-serving originality.
That is not to impugn hard-working Account Planners, but rather to say that the incentives are set up for them not to think about the business – they are not promoted if their brand wins Effies – but to think about the most creative strategy to as to set themselves apart. Strategy isn’t creative and sometimes the most creative strategy isn’t the most effective.
The second reason Account Planning is killing strategy is because it is divorced from day-to-day client contact.
If Planning had day-to-day client contact, then they would be much more in tune with the actual business. This is critical because in most organizations you’re not just selling to consumers, you’re selling to multiple stakeholders that could include internal groups like sales or engineering, quasi-internal groups like franchisees, bottlers or dealers as well as the consumer. Planners are just focused on the consumer. This is a mistake.
Also, having that client contact gives one a deep understanding of the business problems the clients are facing every day, which is critical because often the stated business problem, something like the need to increase frequency with a younger consumer set, isn’t the real business problem, which may actually be a distribution issue that can be solved not by marketing to younger consumers but to retailers that serve younger consumers. With account divorced from strategy and much of the campaign development process, these critical distinctions get lost.
I am an old school guy.
I think that the ideal agency set-up is still built around the partnership between account and creative. Yes, I think that these days both account and creative need to have a broader array of abilities, such as an understanding of digital, proficiency with strategic development, etc, but I think that the best agencies are built simply. With fewer cooks in the kitchen. With a strategically-capable account team that gets the business and, with creative, develops the strategy. Then creative sells the shit of it with great work.
And, because there are fewer people splitting the billable hours, everyone gets richer.
And starts drinking bourbon before noon like in Mad Men.
8 responses so far ↓
Frank // October 3, 2008 at 4:39 am |
And today’s incredibly complicated media landscape especially requires the suits to become little planners, geeks and strategists at the same time. A great time to be a suit.
Heartbreaking | GERMAINE // October 3, 2008 at 8:50 am |
[...] heart broke this morning when reading a post on the Daily Ad Biz blog about Account Planning. A [...]
therumdiary // October 3, 2008 at 4:19 pm |
One would assume that as a “writer” you would try to rid your rant of errors.
One might also assume that if you’re as intelligent as your rant would to suggest, that you would recognize that there are an equal number of completely worthless copy-writers. Writers that not only lack creativity, but are so concerned with the “clever” factor in their ads, that they completely forget that their job is still in fact, to sell things.
These are the same sorts of writers that write directly from the gut all the time, thinking that they fit the realm of every possible “target” because they just seem to understand everything and everyone.
In turn, they are also often the same sort of writers that have crappy work killed by a strategist, and in turn, cry about it in a poorly written ad blog.
therumdiary // October 3, 2008 at 4:21 pm |
One would assume that as a “writer” you would try to rid your rant of errors.
One might also assume that if you’re as intelligent as your rant would suggest, that you would recognize that there are an equal number of completely worthless copy-writers. Writers that not only lack creativity, but are so concerned with the “clever” factor in their ads, that they completely forget that their job is still in fact, to sell things.
These are the same sorts of writers that write directly from the gut all the time, thinking that they fit the realm of every possible “target” because they just seem to understand everything and everyone.
In turn, they are also often the same sort of writers that have crappy work killed by a strategist, and in turn, cry about it in a poorly written ad blog.
Kyle Studstill // October 3, 2008 at 8:20 pm |
I absolutely agree on the point that minimum client connection leaves planners in a position to miss out on very real marketing problems. Here’s where we see poor strategies, planners, and agencies that treat every problem as a communication problem – and this simply isn’t always the case. It’s why we see the agencies that are actually innovating and solving problems are functioning less as strict ad shops and more as strategic consultants, because understanding the consumer and relating to the consumer isn’t always what’s lacking. Certainly that understanding adds to the picture, but thinking of brands whose real problem is somewhere in the service itself or the business practice level. Great thoughts, thanks for sharing!
dailybiz // October 6, 2008 at 12:21 pm |
@ therumdiary – I think that you misunderstand my post…I am not trying to say that planning (and, by extension, planners) is worthless as a function but rather to say that as it is currently constituted in an agency environment that there are structural weaknesses that need to be addressed.
As I mentioned in the post, my solution is to bring planning and account management back together again – after all, a good planner can understand and manage a client’s business and a good account person can get strategy and if you marry the two capabilities both the person and the agency would be better served.
As to ridding my rant of errors, here’s the thing about blogs: their effectiveness if based on immediacy and unedited, un-proofed writing from the gut.
This being a blog, my writing is in the blog style. I don’t edit my posts. I don’t proof my posts. I write in a style that fits the medium. Trust me, I don’t write like this when I write ads, emails, invitations, poems, grocery lists or notes to pass in class…which is a long way of saying that I don’t mind the occasional misspelling, incorrectly used comma or other error. It’s a blog.
As to your point about bad copywriters: of course there are bad copywriters. If you have read my blog for any length of time, you will note how I rail against creative awards because they recognize only a certain type of work, that the certain type the recognize can often be disconnected from achieving the end goal of advertising and how the incentives are set up to drive creatives to want to win awards instead of solving client business problems.
Not only do I agree with you, I’ve already written on the subject.
Extensively.
It is fair to note, however, that Creative is not the only department in an ad agency that suffers from miscalibrated incentives and thus does not operate as well as it could.
Linkdump | ettf.net // October 11, 2008 at 8:19 am |
[...] An interesting post on the problem with account planning [...]
LChang // December 10, 2008 at 2:23 pm |
Great post – you hit on something that’s been turning around in my head for a while.
I’ve had planning experiences across several agencies, and am chagrined at the rampant navel gazing and the fact that this self-aggrandizing attitude is almost celebrated.
Lots of “strategies” (the most overused agency word in my book) are really just short-sighted and shallow approaches for shilling a product. No wonder clients are expressing dissatisfisfaction with many ad agencies and their output.