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).
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.
GROUP

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.

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 tricky 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

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.

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
(sukmolelono@gmail.com)

Laode
Iman
Tauﬀany
(itauﬀany@gmail.com)

Account Management 101

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