account management 101

ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT 101 By Edwin Irvanus & Laode Iman Tauffany

WHAT IS ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT

•  There have been thousands of definitions what an account handler is. We prefer to define what makes a good account handler. It is that person who finds out what the client needs, and then does the best job possible to get the client to do it.

•  A good account handler can analyze a problem to its core, direct the creative firepower of the agency precisely at the core, and respond to and participate in the creative answers to that problem.

•  Not "find out what the client wants" but "find out what the client needs".

THE ACCOUNT TEAM 1.  The team comprises a maximum of four levels:

•  Group Account Director,

•  Account Director,

•  Account Supervisor and

•  Account Executive.

2.  It is the account team's overall responsibility to understand the marketing needs of its client's business and co-ordinate the Media and Creative department in the development of effective advertising. It achieves this by preparing an advertising strategy in tandem with the client. It then ensures this is adhered to, as by definition, effective advertising must be on-strategy.

3.  The account team in essence manages the Agency's clients and depending on the size and complexity of each client, an individual can expect to work on anything from one to six accounts.

4.  Clearly the job function of each team member will alter according to his/her level.

GENERAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE ACCOUNT GROUP 1.  The account manager represents the agency to the

client, and the client to the agency. 2.  The account group should create a climate that

breeds outstanding creative work. 3.  The account manager must provide information. Facts

about the product, the market, the target audience. 4.  The first requirement for great advertising is a great

strategy - one that is simple and persuasive. One the creative group can embrace.

5.  Creative thinking requires time. The account supervisor must provide the time in which big ideas can be conceived and grow.

6.  The account manager should show faith by leaving the creative team alone to do its work.

7.  An essential skill is developing and evaluating copy. The account manager should be a student of advertising, able to comment knowledgeably (rather than nit-pick).

GENERAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE ACCOUNT GROUP

8.  Creative work and creative people must be protected from too many meetings that waste time and erode advertising ideas.

9.  Once the agency recommendation is settled, the account manager is responsible for organizing the most persuasive way of presenting the agency's work.

10.  One mark of a good account partner is the courage to support original ideas.

GENERAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE ACCOUNT GROUP

Principles of Account Management

Principles of Account Management 19 key principles of account management 1.  Stay Involved In Your Client's Business

His business is your business. You should know as much as he does about his product and its marketing. This will earn his respect as well as make you a partner in his business.

2.  Keep Your Client's Sale Healthy Identify the key factors to your client's business success and work on them. Good advertising usually goes hand in hand with good sales results.

3.  First Earn Your Client's Respect. Love Will Follow. Do your homework, prepare your point of view, and present it with conviction. But be willing to admit you are wrong when the logic is on the other side.

4.  Respect your client. Learn to appreciate their problems. There is no faster way to kill a client-agency relationship than to have an account man "bad mouthing" his client in the agency, showing in his manner with the client that he doesn't respect him.

5.  Make your client look good Help your client look good in his company. The better he looks, the better you and the agency look. And he will become a better friend for it.

6.  Stay ahead of your client Anticipate. Lead. Keep the initiative. Think ahead about the important as well as solving the urgent problems of the day.

Principles of Account Management 19 key principles of account management

7.  Stay out of client politics Avoid taking sides in internal client hassles. Be objective and honest. Stick to business rather than people.

8.  Ideas are your business Not only advertising ideas, but product, packaging, promotion or other ideas that will build client sales. New product ideas really tell a client you are committed to his growth.

9.  Have guts Be willing to err for an idea or unpopular view. No risks, no big gains. Put your ego on the table when your instincts tell you that your idea has potential or that the majority is wrong.


10. Be responsible. Never assume that something will happen unless you have made sure it will happen. Button down details. Check and double-check. Rehearse. Follow up. Worry.

11. Work hard with competitive urgency. The more your capacity increases. The more you idle, the more difficult it is to get anything done well or on time. There are a lot of smart people in advertising. The hard workers succeed.

12. Be task oriented, more than people Don't rely on secondary or tertiary sources about your market. Talk to consumer, work with salesmen, and meet retailers or others in the channels of distribution.


13. Learn to be a good salesman A great idea isn't anything until it is sold. Learn to persuade. Don't be tr icky in your presentation. You must be able to sell your ideas or point of view

14. Learn to be an excellent communicator You must be able to write and present well. These traits are acquired, not inherited. Practice.

15. Put it on paper, but be brief Nobody likes excess paper work. But there is no better discipline for thinking out a problem than a short memo (long, rambling documents are easy to write to put it on one page is tough). Put your major recommendations to clients on paper.


16. Inform and involve the agency in your account Encourage everyone working on your account in the agency to contribute as a generalist rather than solely in a specialist capacity. This is best done in small face-to-face meeting.

17.  Build the faith with your creative brothers Help get great advertising on your account by building a good relationship with your creative counterparts. You must sense the needs of the writer and the artist. You must protect them from difficult clients.


18. You are speaking for the agency - not for yourself Your client is hiring the agency you work for, not you. The client assumes your recommendations are those of the agency. You must work with all departments and hammer out an agency agreement.

19. If you want to grow, learn to let go Hire the best people you can find. Train them. then let them fly. Learn to hope the client will call them, not you. As they grow, you grow.


1.  Account handlers are very important people, and a lot is expected of them.

2.  The eight most important things, which is expected from an account Handler, and upon which performance will be largely evaluated:

Have You Done Your Homework : The Brand Book

§  Above all, hold yourself responsible for genera5ng the best crea5ve work in your client's category.

§  Know your client's consumer be>er than anybody else does.

§  Be an expert in your client's business §  Generate well thought-‐out strategies §  Surprise your client with ideas to build his business §  Be the best briefer in the agency §  Be able to account for every Rp. spent by the agency for

your client §  Create a produc5ve team environment involving your

crea5ve and media partners and your client.

•  They are always associated with great creative work •  They always have the respect of their creative colleagues •  Their clients love them •  They always have the respect of their media colleagues.

How to Recognize a Good Account Handler

A Good Account Handler Is an Efficient Administrator

The Account Handler's Key Objective 1.  It is their entire responsibility to make sure that

sensational, distinctive and relevant creative work is consistently produced for their clients.

2.  One of the characteristics of a good Account Handler is that he is an efficient administrator.

3.  Administrator isn't God-given asset. It must be learned and every Account Handler simply has to be superb at it.

4.  There are several pieces of formulized documentation that are mandatory. They must be used for every client, and in some cases for every job this will be evident in each description.

Brand Book Purpose •  The brand book is simply a collection of the basic, central

facts about a brand. These are put together in one easily portable volume. The aim is to give a clear picture of the account as it currently stands.

•  We have brand books for two main reasons: •  They make life easier. Whether you are in a meeting, or

writing a report at your own desk, it is extremely convenient to be able to look up the essential facts in a second or two.

•  (They make the briefing of new Account Handler much simpler and any hand-over much more efficient.

Brand Book

These Documents are The Brand Book Which Contains

1.  Brand Profile 2.  Marketing Strategy and Client brief 3.  Creative Strategy 4.  Quarterly Report 5.  Status Report

•  The brand book is maintained and kept by the Account Executive. It should always be in a fit state for use. And it should always be taken to meetings, so that the unexpected question can be answered quickly.

Brand Books

CONTENTS

1.  Meeting Objectives and Plan: 2.  Communication Strategy: 3.  Product Data: 4.  Sales Data 5.  Competition: 6.  Creative 7.  Media 8.  Promotions 9.  Research Summaries

10.  Budget 11.  Recommendation 12.  The Current Work List 13.  Contact Reports 14.  The Latest Status Report 15.  Field Reports 16.  Reference 17.  Account History 18.  Note

CREATIVE STRATEGY

17 Strategy Checkpoints Here are some tips to keep in mind as you and your agency hammer out a creative strategy. 1.  Make the creative strategy fit the marketing

plan Don't let the product, price, and package go off in one direction, while the advertising goes off in another. The team must work in harness

2. Keep your objectives reasonable Over ambition is the pitfall of most strategies. Don't try to talk to everyone (instead of likely users), don't sell a product for allocations, don't as people to change their habits (instead of just their brand). Changing deeply ingrained habits may be the hardest job for advertising.

17 Strategy Checkpoints

3.  Make your strategy easy to use It should be very short, very sharp, and leave no room for misunderstanding. One page - with as much backup rationale as you need.

4. Be single-minded Great ideas are simple. Give the copywriter clear, single-minded direction if you expect a big idea to reach the consumer.

5. State a business objective Recipe advertising usually means the strategy aims to build usage of a product already in the home. The strategy has at its heart a clear statement of the problem to be solved.

6.  Decide where your business is going to come from Strategies should recognize source. Unless you have a unique new product that brings new consumer into the market, your business generally comes out of someone else's business.

7.  Understand your target audience Most strategies spend too much time on product attributes, too little on the consumer. Go beyond age and income. Define attitude and usage patterns that will help the copywriter talk to the most likely buyer.


8.  Make a meaningful promise to the consumer Your product's benefit to the consumer must be meaningful and strong if the advertising is to do its job.

9.  Support your promise Do something to make your promise convincing.

10. Set yourself apart Look for an empty niche in the market. Avoid positioning that is exactly the same as your competitor's. if you want to be in the same general area as your competitor, build some element that will see your brand apart.


11. Give your product a distinctive personality It is very hard to do. Many products never achieve a "brand image" of their own. This personality goes beyond the product itself; it is an aura that helps set your brand apart from all others

12. Advertise what is important, not what is obvious The right strategy is to talk about important benefits not so apparent.

13. Think ahead Being first is best. Being first is with something your competitors will take a long time to imitate - a preemptive element-is best of all. Don't underestimate your competition.


14. Keep your strategy up to date Parts of your strategy-the key benefit and the personality-should almost never change, and then only with a real understanding of the implications of a new positioning. But as you get new information, polish the strategy and keep it up to date.

15. Don't change your strategy without good reason Falling sales could result from poor executions of a good strategy. Or new competition in the market. Take a hard look at all aspects of your business before you think about changing your strategy. Then, test.


16. Put the strategy in writing It's easy to fall in love with a new campaign, and forget the discipline of positioning. Get your strategy statement in writing, and refer to it. The first question to be asked of any advertisement is: "Is it on strategy?“

17. Have a better product Too many business and advertising people are so convinced of the power of the advertising that they believe it can sell anything. While great advertising can give products a place in the market, usually there is a real product advantage behind marketing successes. Better advertising starts with a better product.


The Account Executive's Role In The Creative Process

•  Everybody agrees that it is the quality of your creative product which, more than anything else, creates the visibility for the Agency, puts us on Client's Shopping Lists, and wins us new accounts.

•  Once the account is won, it is the account service persons - not the creative people who are primarily responsible for the servicing of the account. To use a military analogy, our account handlers are our front line troops.

•  But it is the account executive that the client tends to relate to, and to complain to. And it is through the account executive that most communications are made between Client and the Agency.

The Account Executive's Role In The Creative Process •  The creative process starts with a Client brief and is not

complete until the client has accepted the Agency's recommendation and its implementation. He, the account executive, is part of it and therefore must carry an equal share of the responsibility.

•  So the account executive's responsibility starts with the advertising brief and he must ensure that the execution reflects the strategy.

THANK YOU

Edwin Irvanus ([email protected]) Laode Iman Tauffany ([email protected])