First, let me describe my job and that of my counterpart-the brand manager-like the hubs of two wheels on an axle. The brand manager, as the hub of one wheel, manages the daily business of a particular brand. He's therefore responsible for coordinating all the work on the client side in order to move that business forward. He consequently has many arms, or spokes, working with him. These include a research group, a product development group, a sales group, an administrative group, and so forth.
But the brand manager's job is not complete unless the other wheel-the agency-moves with him. As the account executive on the same brand, I am the hub of that other wheel. Paralleling the brand manager's "spokes," I also have my research department, my creative department, and so on. It is my job to supply them with the directive they need to develop the best advertising and put it on the air.
Very simply, it works like this. First, I develop a copy strategy. This is a document that outlines critical information such as the target audience, the product's key benefit, the main selling idea, and rational. From here, I turn the strategy over to one spoke-the creatives - who actually come up with the commercial ideas. I then turn their work over to yet another spoke-the production people-who make the final commercial. As this is being finished, the media department, another spoke develops plans for placing the commercial and eventually executes those plans. There are a whole host of other spokes, too; research, administration, consumer promotion, and so forth. I have no direct control over of those people, but they are all working on the same assignment.
Thus, like the brand manager, I am responsible for coordinating all daily activities in order to put the advertising together. Then, wit] the marketing plans that we develop with the client, both wheels move forward to deliver a product and its advertising to market.
The liaison between the client and the creative department is the challenge in a nutshell. You are truly in the middle: You've got to listen to what the client says, and then you have to translate that to the creative people, hopefully not just like a tape recording but adding some initiative of your own. You may, in fact, disagree with some of the input you got. If you can't sell it back to the client, then you run the risk of eventually having the creative people work out an assignment that the client didn't want done. So, you interpret the needs of the client, explain them to the creative department, and try to motivate them to do their st work. When you get it, if you don't think it's right, then you have to schuss it with the people whose hearts are in it. Eventually you get to 3 point where both you and the creative department think it's right, d then you both have to go sell it to the client. The client may or may it agree, and then it is necessary to sell it to the client's boss and probably the client's boss's boss. So there is a lot of selling involved. And an account person also provides some good consulting.
A part of my job is administration. It includes a lot of things like filling in expense reports and making sure I receive the proper valuations on the secretaries. I make billing forecasts to tell management how my brand is doing, what its problems are in terms of the present market and last year's market, and what the projections are for next year. This may include some brief market analysis that shows management how these things affect the brand's ability to do this or that.
Q - Don't account executives actually get out and solicit new accounts?
A - Soliciting accounts is usually the domain of the top people and particularly the top people in the account management area. Almost every account that we would like to get our hands on already has an advertising agency. The first requirement, I guess, is to be known around and by the top people who would make the decisions in those accounts, in case an account were to change agencies. So, for example, on new business prospect, if "Bob Jones" is the key man, we would want anybody in our agency to know Bob Jones fairly well. Now maybe Bob Jones is a member of the advertising club, so we want one of our people to be a member of the advertising club. They are both active members, and ideally they might work together on a project and develop a relationship. In case Bob ever gets unhappy with his own agency, we hope the first thing he would do is call his buddy here. That tends to be how these things happen. The agency can be fairly well known, but a lot happens on a personal basis, because people are usually unwilling to call up some agency, ask for the president, introduce themselves on the phone, and say, "Hey, would you send someone over to talk to me?" It doesn't happen that way very often.
Many people ask that question, and the answer is no-we are lot sales people in that sense of the word. However, we are sales people in the sense that we have to sell the client on our ideas and recommendations.
