Ms. Adverthinker

I recently completed the book “The Accidental Creative” by Todd Henry. It is not a self-help book; at least, that is what I am telling myself to feel better about loving it so much. But it kind of is a self-help book for those with creative pursuits, specifically in the advertising business. The author has a background in agency business and it felt like he was talking directly to me and only me, the experiences and stories were so dead on.  And, I am a not a “creative;” I work in account management.

As the readers here know, based on an epiphany and an encounter I had in April, I have taken on a mission to recreate the account management department at our agency to act, and be perceived by their peers, as more than notetakers and communications conduits between clients and creative teams. There are a lot of aspects to this shift, but one major piece is that the account managers have to think of themselves as creative and thereby contributors to that creative process and output. To quote the book:

“While a designer will solve a problem visually, a manager may solve it by developing a new process. But they’re both using the same creative tools and wrestling with many of the same obstacles.”

I have been doing a lot of work against this effort, mostly in the form of research and notes, without much implementation yet. I believe this  book can explain to my team how important their creativity is, that they are all creative, and they just need the right attitude, approach and plan to be creative in their contributions to the agency, their teams and their lives. To that end, I am going to ask everyone on my team to read this book. (Don’t worry, I’ve learned none of them read this blog, so I am not spoiling any surprise for them by posting it here. Although, if my boss wrote a blog about our business, I would definitely be reading it regularly. Perhaps that is a post and vent for another day.)

The book starts by walking through the hinderances to creativity, especially those in an ad agency. Then, it takes the reader through recommendations for overcoming those obstacles. I am not going to outline them for you here, you have to read the book. Some of the recommendations seems so obvious, but none of us our doing them, making the time to even attempt to do them or thinking twice about skipping over the obvious steps to creativity just to check something else off our to-do list. Other recommendations are easy to accomplish, it is just a matter of setting out to do them and getting them on the calendar.

So, why is this book my new “life guide”? “The Accidental Creative” it also about leadership, team work, time management and life happiness. To quote the book again:

“It is more and more difficult in today’s world to segment your life into buckets like ‘work,’ ‘home,’ ‘relationships,’ hobbies,’ and so on. Every area of your life affects every other, and a lack of engagement in one area will quickly infect the rest. As you implement these practices, you will find that your newfound creative energy will infiltrate not just your work life, but other areas of your life as well. A rising tide raises all boats.”

This book is a definite recommend.

It probably goes without saying, but I love my job at Stone Ward. I must if I have been here for over 10 years, right? It is a great place to work, the culture is like family and creative work is what we do best. Who wouldn’t want to work here? Well, now is your opportunity. We are looking to hire an experienced account manager.  If you are interested, please contact me at ereeves@stoneward.com.  Here are the position details:

Stone Ward is seeking an Account Manager with 5+ years agency experience. Experience should include a demonstrated ability to think strategically about the client’s business and a demonstrated ability to direct and recognize results-oriented marketing communications that are on brand strategy.

The Account Manager will be required to provide business and marketing counsel to clients at an executive management level and oversee an associate account executive in the daily execution of client projects. The Account Manager will also oversee the client profitability and will be responsible for managing the client budget and agency revenue.  The Account Manager will report to the Director of Account Management.

Job responsibilities will include:

• Serving as an agency leader across all disciplines to lead an integrative approach to all client marketing communications.
• Acting as a leader for agency teams, creating a culture of team-level responsibility for achieving agency and client goals.
• Developing strong relationships throughout the client organization, particularly at executive management level, maintaining thorough understanding of client satisfaction and ensuring client retention.
• Maintaining a thorough understanding of client’s business, category, competitive landscape and customer base to ensure agency is proactive in delivering strategic marketing direction.
• Recognizing and contribute to creative account planning that is excellent, results-oriented and strategic.
• Providing strategic consultation about client’s business and marketing initiatives on a regular basis.
• Supervising clients budgets and billing, as well as agency profitability by client.
• Continuously seeking out education and information on communications tools, techniques and trends to apply to client’s communications initiatives.

Desired traits in an Account Manager include (in no particular order):

• Flexible
• Proactive
• Organized
• Innovative
• Cheerleader
• Collaborative
• Numbers nerd
• Detail-oriented
• Not reactionary
• Strong work ethic
• No shrinking violets
• Calm under pressure
• Know when to say “no”
• Ability deal with multiple personality styles
• Willingness to learn new things
• Willingness to take hit for team
• Good written communications skills
• Good verbal communications skills
• Producer-type personality
• Ability to defend creative
• Good time management
• Good creative instincts
• Ability for forethought
• Good negotiator
• Problem-solver
• Thought leader
• People person
• Open-minded
• Good listener
• Team player
• Multi-tasker
• Technophile
• Self-starter
• Passionate
• Confident
• Realistic
• Creative
• Diligent
• Patient
• Leader
• Coach
• Agent
• Calm
• Fair

About the Account Management department at Stone Ward:

The Account Management function at Stone Ward serves an extension of the client’s marketing department, with a specialization in creative communications and customer experience interactions. We are a partner in the client’s strategic communications planning, execution, budgeting and measurement.

Our account management group has been talking a lot lately about improving ur creative briefs. During this process, we stumbled on to this video from the founders of Instagram and liked what they said about being sure that the problems you are setting out to solve are actually the right problems.

The best compliment I could have received at the conference I attended this week was in the question above (and my new friend that asked the question endeared himself to me forever). This was a compliment in the context of this conference because I had just come off a presentation about my takeaways from SXSWi, an interactive and creative conference and not something one would expect account people to attend. Account Management (account managers, account executives, etc.) gets a bad rap in the ad agency business; there is an assumption in many agencies that they are order-takers and simply a go-between. However, the truth is that they are saddled with a lot of responsibility (at least, in our agency): communications strategy development, budget management, revenue management, deadline management, scheduling/traffic, relationship building both inside and outside, ensuring integration across the agency in the strategies we recommend for the agency, meeting leaders, proof-reading, research, maintaining knowledge of industry trends, maintaining knowledge of their clients’ business trends, and the list goes on. But they get none of the “glory” when a creative project is deemed successful, although without a good account person on the team, the project likely would not have come to its fruitful results.

Because I was the only account person at a conference of creative directors, digital strategists and media directors, I heard much complaining about the roles account people play in agencies. Some of the complaints were legitimate, some were blame-shifting (perhaps), but regardless, these conversations have inspired me to think about how to improve account management in agencies. I should be proud to be an “AE,” not flattered by a question that implies I am “better than” an AE.

I have been thinking on this challenge for several days and know that more concentrated training is in order, both for the account team and for their agency partners.

Starting in May, we will begin weekly training and sharing sessions with our account teams to not only improve their skills, but also their confidence in the roles they each play in the agency.  I am interested in any thoughts readers here have for what kind of training is needed for account people, or examples of how account people are trained in your own agencies.  I plan on sharing our training methods here in a weekly series and look forward to your feedback.

For our agency partners (creative, media, interactive, PR, production): what would be the best way to earn respect and understanding for the work that we do and the contribution that we make?