I was recently emailed a newsletter from our new PR manager and to my bewilderment it was all about, ‘Should all account managers be fired’ and ‘what do they do?’ So I thought I need to put pen to paper and answer the proposed statement.
Now I’ll probably need some sort of protective clothing for this post. So I sit typing wearing a hard hat and Kevlar vest and, if you’re a creative, I’ll expect you to throw things at me very shortly. I shall carry on regardless… here goes: What do account managers do and should they all be fired!
That fantastic campaign/website/project you creatives have just taken to the client – the one they loved so much they fell off their chairs in amazement? Where did it all go right?
Now I know from personal experience that when you actually ask this question the creatives look at each other and share the love. The designers say how great the copy was, the copywriters say the imagery gave them all they needed and the photographers take it full circle to the designers and web builders again.
Actually, I say spare a thought for us account managers.
But here’s what I think: the genuis of that successful project wasn’t only in the brainstorms, the conceptualisation, the mood boards or whatever else you do before you launch into a project. It was in the conversations with the client. It was in the way the brief accurately reflected what the client wanted. And it was in the way that same brief sparked something brilliant in the bubbling, fizzing mind of the creative.
Know who did all that? The account manager did.
What exactly do you do?
This isn’t about saying we account managers are responsible for everything and the creatives aren’t. On the contrary, without creatives every project would stop at the brief – and just imagine what campaigns would be like if that were the case.
But account managers are all too often a forgotten part of the mix. So, let me redress the balance just a little – and while I’m at it I’ll help answer the question that always gets asked the moment I tell someone I’m an account manager: “What exactly do you do?”
I get inside the client’s head
Some clients have been round this creative process before. For them, what I do is collect their ideas so I can relay that to the team.
But frequently clients haven’t used a creative marketing or branding agency before. This is a new and scary world and they frankly haven’t the foggiest what they want.
That’s when your account manager really earns their crust, because it’s their job to crawl inside the client’s head and work out what those vague descriptions (“I want it to be just like the John Lewis’ ad. But completely different”) really mean.
I write for the creatives
As a creative, which would you prefer? A business-like and professional brief that covers all the essential points but leaves you snoring peacefully by the end of it? Or a brief that might not be something you’d want to show the client, but does stir up some energy?
Because if your account manager can’t show some excitement and passion for a project – even if that means using language your mum wouldn’t approve of – then why the hell should anyone else?
I get ideas flowing
Let’s be honest – not every project is as immediately appealing as you might like. But that’s the whole point of a marketing agency: to make you want something that doesn’t – at first thought – seem particularly want-able.
It’s all about the hook, and whether it’s a line from the client or something a competitor is doing, I’ll always want to provide the creative team with a few lines that I know will get the creative juices flowing. You know the way your creatives work. You know what gets them fired up. It’s an account manager’s job to feed that creativity.
I remember it’s called a brief for a reason
Creativity doesn’t need last year’s turnover figures, or a War and Peace-like values statement. But it does need someone to look at all the information the client provides and decide which elements of that the creatives need to know about.
So I boil down information to its essential parts, so I can give the creative team a brief that’s, well…. you know, brief.
So, creative people, next time you’re earning the plaudits for a campaign well delivered, accept the praise but just remember to say this one line. It’ll make me and every other account manager very happy:
“Well the work’s only as good as the brief”. Something I’ve managed to train our Creative Director to say and now he does it without a prompt!
Morag Dumbarton is an Account Manager at Happy Creative, a full service marketing and creative agency based in Blackpool, Lancashire. To learn more or contact us please go to www.happy-creative.co.uk
