Account planning from genesis to revelation
Merry Baskin
Keywords
Advertising agencies, Accounts,
Marketing planning,
Marketing management
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to
provide an overview of account
planning by tracing its origins,
development and role from its
genesis to its current status.
Account planning grew out of
dissatisfaction with advertising
agencies' ability to meet the
challenges they were facing in the
early 1960s. It started out by
combining elements of research
and strategic planning to inform
creative development and to
provide the guidance and direction
needed to use consumer insight to
drive successful creative
solutions. Since those early
beginnings, a changing
advertising environment has
fuelled account planning's exodus
as it has been adopted
internationally and by marketing
communications fields that extend
beyond advertising. While the
paper brings us to the current day,
account planning continues to
evolve. It is expected that the
trend of adoption by a range of
marketing communications
specialist agencies will persist but
that a new account planning
``revelation'' will be in the form of
independent strategy
consultancies and increased
client activities.
Marketing Intelligence &
Planning
21/7 [2003] 416-424
# MCB UP Limited
[ISSN 0263-4503]
[DOI 10.1108/02634500310504250]
[ 416 ]
Baskin Shark, Brand Planning Consultancy, Cirencester, UK
David Pickton
Department of Marketing, Leicester Business School, De Montfort University, UK
Introduction
Account planning appears to be a function
little known and even less understood
outside the marketing communications
industry even after more than 30 years since
its original inception when the first account
planner stalked the corridors of the J. Walter
Thompson (JWT) and Boasse Massimi Pollitt
(BMP) advertising agencies in London. Since
its early genesis in advertising, account
planning has experienced an exodus (in
varying transformations) into media
independents, client marketing departments,
direct marketing agencies, design
consultancies, PR firms and other specialist
marketing communications agencies.
In the late 1970s, the UK Account Planning
Group (APG) was formed as a collection of
account planners, researchers and other like
minded individuals. Since its tentative
beginnings, it has been adopted in
advertising communities extending as far as
the USA and Canada, Hong Kong, Australia,
Scandinavia, Chile, Brazil, China and
various other parts of Europe. And these are
just the countries that have approached the
APG in the UK to start their own account
planning groups. It would be true to say that
the UK remains the spiritual home of account
planning. As Baskin (2000, p. vii), then
Planning Director, J. Walter Thompson and
previous APG Chair, notes:
. . . although over 30 years have passed, the
planning community has multiplied and the
discipline has diversified, the core beliefs
actually have not changed. As long as we
continue our desire to create an environment
where creativity can flourish, where great
ideas can be conceived, developed and
embraced by client and consumer, where
seeking to replace irrelevant and
inappropriate research methodologies with
innovative and useful ones, and where
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creatives and planners co-exist with an edgy
tension, then here there is hope that planning
can continue to make a difference. And thank
you to JWT and BMP for making it possible in
the first place.
A brief history of account planning
its genesis, antecedents and
impetus for growth
All client organisations and their agencies
benefit from a disciplined system for
devising their advertising and marketing
communications strategy(ies) and enhancing
their ability to produce outstanding creative
solutions that will be effective in the
marketplace. In simple terms, account
planners are charged with the task of:
. . . guiding or facilitating this process via the
astute application of knowledge and
understanding about the market customers
and consumers (Baskin, 2001, p. 3).
Some may assert that such knowledge and
understanding should be expected of the
client's marketing manager and this may
hold more than a grain of truth. However, it
is not only the development of market
understanding that defines the account
planner's job; it is also in the application of
that understanding to enhance creative
development and the marketing
communications process. At the core of the
task is the need to understand customers and
consumers and the brand to unearth a key
insight for the communications solution
(create relevance) and in doing so, in a
crowded media environment, cut through the
cynicism to connect with the audience
(create distinctiveness) in an effective and
efficient way.
Pragmatically, such insights need to be
derived from somewhere and advertising
agencies have traditionally been in an
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Merry Baskin and excellent position to fulfil the role of
David Pickton generating market understanding. From the
Account planning from
genesis to revelation 1950s, ``marketing'' and ``marketing plans''
were executed by the ad agency. They
Marketing Intelligence &
Planning pioneered market research main agencies
21/7 [2003] 416-424 either had large research departments or
research subsidiaries and they created test
kitchens for NPD. JWT started the British
Market Research Bureau (BMRB). They have
been the bedrock out of which many
marketing practices have been hewn:
It was a reflection of the broader consultancy
role advertising agencies played. They were
partly torch bearers for a new marketing
perspective on business (Pollitt, 1979, p. 29).
However, through the 1960s and beyond, in
adopting marketing practices, clients
restructured their organisations to introduce
their own marketing departments and
market research agencies grew to meet the
increasing demand for more continuous and
sophisticated marketing research. Media
proliferation and increasing emphasis on
multifarious marketing communications
activities has seen the growth of specialist
communications agencies and a questioning
of the advertising agencies' role as unbiased,
media neutral marketing consultants. The
strategic ``high ground'' and position was
being lost by the ad agencies and no doubt
there were many who recognised that some
retaliatory response would be needed.
It may be suggested that this came in the
forms of Stephen King of JWT and Stanley
Pollitt of BMP who are the undisputed
forefathers of account planning. In separate
agencies, but at pretty much the same time,
they started a revolution in the advertising
world, one that has been called ``the greatest
innovation in agency working practice since
Bill Bernbach put art directors and
copywriters together in the 1950s'' (Feldwick,
2000, p. ix), and one that Jay Chiat, pioneer of
account planning in the USA, has referred to
as ``the best new business tool ever invented''
(Steel, 1998, p. 42).
In 1964, King, dissatisfied with the
workings of both the media and marketing
departments within his agency, developed a
new system of working (the Thompson
T-Plan or target plan) which concentrated on
combining consumer research and insights
to create more effective, creative advertising.
He believed that a more systematic,
intellectual approach less reliant on ``gut
feeling'' and intuition was needed which,
through rigorous analysis of the brand,
would match marketing objectives to
advertising strategy and, in so doing,
produce effective, creative campaigns (King,
1989).
Pollitt, in 1968, as more data were
becoming available to agencies, was
concerned at the enormity of discretion
account management had in writing creative
briefs, and felt that they were using data
either incompetently or expediently. He
wanted a specially trained researcher as an
equal partner at the elbow of the account
man. For Pollitt, the voice of the consumer
was of paramount importance, and using
consumer research to clarify the issues and
enrich the advertising process was an
essential component. When, in 1968 BMP was
formed, each of its three accounts was
managed by an account director and a (line
function) account planner.
Both King and Pollitt shared a desire to
reorganize the media planning, market
research and marketing departments; King,
initially by a process, and Pollitt, via a
person. Both were led towards the creation of
a new department and a new discipline. As
D'Souza (1986) noted, although their
principles were similar, their methods of
working differed. Many of today's planners
have been trained in one or the other schools
of planning but, increasingly, working
practices have become blurred as the
established, ``traditionally-structured''
agencies sought for ways of taking planners
on board. Feldwick (2000, p. xii) negatively
comments on this variety (and too typically,
inappropriateness) of working practices as
lying at the root of:
. . . much of the criticism and
misunderstanding of account planning . . .
where current practice often differs most
from the original idea the planners have
little knowledge of, and sometimes even no
apparent interest in, research; planning
departments of two or three people expected
to serve a medium to large agency, and who,
therefore, however hard they work, cannot
possible achieve the in-depth knowledge of
each account that Stanley (Pollitt) envisaged;
planning relationships with creatives and
account management that are either too cosy,
or too remote.
The term ``account planning'' has been felt to
be a misnomer by many, its origins, as
commented by Crosier et al. (2003), being
unclear. While they propose that ``creative
planning'' might have been a more accurate
description as the role incorporated ``from
the outset . . . a significant input into the
development of creative strategy'', they also
recognise that it ``might have antagonised the
high profile creative directors of the day''
(Crosier et al., 2003, p. 2). The name, ``account
planning'', was, in fact, coined by Tony Stead
at a JWT awayday in 1968, attended by
selected people from both the media planning
and account handling departments of the
[ 417 ]
Merry Baskin and agency. As King's new department was to
David Pickton comprise a hybrid selected folk from both
Account planning from disciplines, he simply merged the titles
genesis to revelation
together. And so, as Baskin (2001, p. 2)
Marketing Intelligence &
Planning observes, ``we have been saddled with one of
21/7 [2003] 416-424 the most obfuscatory job titles ever since''. In
North America, the job titles of ``brand
planner'' and ``strategic planner'' have been
tried but none of these appear to have been
satisfactorily accepted as alternatives.
In 1986, some 20 plus years after the
``launch'' of account planning, Sev D'Souza
(then of the agency Still Price Court Twivy
D'Souza) attempted a much needed and,
subsequently, a much referenced, description
of account planning, its meaning within the
industry and the origins of its development.
D'Souza (1986) noted a number of factors
that encouraged agencies to move into
account planning in the 1960s and these
provided impetus for its growth and
development into the late 1980s and beyond.
Among them he identified changing client
expectations of their agencies in which their
role as ``market consultants'' decreased while
demand for distinctive agency discipline
increased. This occurred as clients gained in
their own sophistication of marketing as a
customer focused function.
Indeed, in the 1960s, the clients' own
emphasis on marketing and the move of the
market research function away from
agencies to client companies who ``set up
their own market research departments,
devised their own research programmes and
commissioned research themselves'' (Pollitt,
1979, p. 29) was a major reason for Pollitt to
conceive of the need for account planning in
the first place. Ironically, as we moved
towards the end of the millennium and into
the next, we have seen a downsizing of client
marketing departments yet no diminution of
the need for strategic marketing
communications thinking. This, coupled
with a highly fragmented and divergent
mediascape in which there are ever
increasing ways in which clients can
communicate with their target audiences
(Pickton and Broderick, 2001; Franz, 2000), is
placing ever more importance on strategic
thinking in helping differentiate brands
(Crosier et al., 2003) and, thereby, the role of
account planning.
Concurrently, in the latter half of the
twentieth century, consumer attitudes were
changing and were doing so with increasing
rapidity. This required far more attention to
be paid to the monitoring and evaluation of
these attitudes and their implications for
advertising and creative development.
Markets were becoming more sophisticated
and complex. Brand images were becoming
[ 418 ]
more important and self-evident. Advertising
was an important function in creating brand
differentiation and positioning. With the
increasing sophistication of the marketplace
and advertising's role within in it, it was
becoming imperative to understand
consumer attitudes and reactions to
advertising. The emotional reaction to
advertising was being recognised and the
means to evaluate advertising's impact
gained in importance. Convergence on
account planning was as a consequence of all
of these features.
Collectively, these pressures have meant
that clients have placed a premium on high
quality ``planner thinking'' (Edwards, 1997).
This has created opportunities for account
planners within agencies but it has also
increased threats from the growing
aspirations of media planners within the
media independents who have split from
agencies to vie for ``brand custodianship'' in
the eyes of the client (Crosier et al., 2003), and
from the marketing and management
consultancies who have extended their skills
into marketing communications planning.
But it should not be presumed that account
planning has been universally adopted.
There are numerous agencies that do not
employ account planners and the adoption of
the function varies in different countries, not
least as their marketing communications
environments differ. Since the mid 1980s,
although the number of account planners in
ad agencies has fluctuated, there has not
been a consistent increase over the nearly 20
years that have followed. The proportion of
account planners and researchers has
remained reasonably constant as a
proportion of total advertising employees
(IPA, 2003).
This is, perhaps, to be expected. As
identified above, a number of industry and
market changes have occurred. During this
period, the advertising industry has seen a
major growth of media independents as an
exodus of media planners and buyers moved
from their traditional roots within the ad
agencies themselves. These media
independents extended their activities to
include at least some of the roles performed
by account planners (see also the article by
Will Collin in this issue). Additionally,
account planning infiltrated other marketing
communications areas. This includes its
adoption in each of the promotional fields by
widening its brief away from a pure
advertising focus. John Bartle of Bartle Bogle
Hegarty supported this assertion when he
noted in commenting on the 2001 APG
Awards (APG, 2003):
Merry Baskin and The continuing expansion of the account
David Pickton planning discipline beyond the traditional
Account planning from ``ad agency'' is something we have seen
genesis to revelation reflected in our membership (APG) profile.
Marketing Intelligence &
Planning Furthermore, as part of its development and
21/7 [2003] 416-424 increasing sophistication, account planning
has increased its breadth of market analysis.
While ``consumer insight'' and ``voice of the
consumer'' may still be declared as principal
account planning contributions, these should
not be at the exclusion of recognition of other
factors that influence consumers including
market dynamics, other target audience
members and competitive positioning.
Account planners are more than the voice of
the consumer; they are the ``voice of the
market''. There is now evidence of
independent marketing communications
strategy agencies that can provide
unconstrained solutions that overcome the
(potential) bias inherent in any media or
specialist agencies due to the very nature of
their businesses. It may be argued that the
move into more generic marketing
communications strategy agencies
represents the new revelation and
transformation of account planning in the
new millennium.
Account-planning roles
While the foregoing discussion has outlined
the origins and development of account
planning, little has so far been said about its
roles. As may be anticipated given the
organic growth of the function within the
industry, the actual roles played by account
planners are not consistent across all
agencies or incarnations. Crosier et al. (2003)
have identified four key factors that will
determine, or at least have impact on, these
roles and how planning operates in agencies:
agency ethos, client type, agency size and
agency location. The authors also
commented on the enormity of roles to be
performed and the difficulty involved in
undertaking them all. For those who did,
they coined the term ``super-planner'' and
noted:
. . . their role has moved beyond creative
development into an understanding of what
advertising can contribute to building and
maintaining brand equity through creative
and consistent communication of brand
values. The widely noted fragmentation of the
media adds the vital strategic responsibility
of maintaining synergy across all forms of
marketing communication. The recent
history of the discipline suggests that
planners are being increasingly stretched and
that planners are under pressure to be ``all
things to all men'' (Crosier et al., 2003, p. 4).
In 1986, D'Souza when trying to summarise
the job of account planner, identified four
stages of the task:
1 Strategy development stage involving
studying the client's brief, analysing
existing data, commissioning research,
developing an insight into the consumer
relationship with the brand and its
advertising, defining strategy, gaining
agreement for the strategy.
2 Creative development stage involving
writing the creative brief to incorporate
the brand positioning and proposition,
briefing the creative team, orchestrating
diagnostic research on creative ideas,
evaluating creative ideas and discussing
implications with the creative team.
3 Approval stage involving working with
the account team in gaining client
approval.
4 Post-campaign stage involving tracking
and evaluation.
These four task stages can be mapped onto
the roles identified later in Table I. He
illustrated the account planner's overall role
by contrasting the predispositions of the
main players in the process:
Client says: My Product. Account Director
says: My Client. Creative Director says: My
Ad. Planner says: My Consumer (D'Souza,
1986, p. 5).
In this way he was able to emphasise the
account planner's principal focus on the
target market (better still, the various target
audience groups, but emphasis then was still
on a clear consumer focus) by bringing the
ultimate consumer's perspective into the
development of advertising as a ``disciplined
and systematic approach to the creation of
ads''. This very much reflected both Pollitt's
and King's ambitions. It is interesting to
note, however, in these still early days of
account planning, the role was very much
centred within advertising agencies with the
principal purpose of providing consumer
insight into the creative development of
advertisements. For many, this remains its
raison d'etre today while others, remaining
true to its ontological origins, have expanded
the role to recognise its application and value
to a much broader array of marketing
communications and to the total strategy
process (not just creative development).
Thus, account planning is increasingly
revealed to benefit integrated marketing
communications (or, using a currently
favoured term, media neutral planning) as a
vital role within the total IMC planning and
implementation process.
Recognising its burgeoning growth,
D'Souza did point out even in those earlier
[ 419 ]
Merry Baskin and
David Pickton
Account planning from
genesis to revelation
Marketing Intelligence &
Planning
21/7 [2003] 416-424
Table I
Account planner roles
Account planner meta-roles
Researcher
Voice of the market
Strategist
Creative catalyst
Process activist and facilitator
Note: a Baskin (2001)
[ 420 ]
writings that, ``the way account planning
works varies from agency to agency and,
even within an agency, from planner to
planner'' (D'Souza, 1986, p. 1) depending upon
the particular environment and the skills of
the planners concerned. The same is clearly
evident today as we see the adoption of
account planning practices across the range
of communications agencies. The planning
director of a direct marketing agency,
(reported in Crawford, 1994, p. 36) agues that
below-the-line planners have a much larger
remit than planners in above-the-line
agencies and provides a pretty
comprehensive list of activities:
The first requirement of planners is that they
are well rounded and experienced marketing
people. But on top of that they must have the
expertise in market analysis, thorough
knowledge of what information exists,
consumer motivations, creative development,
guarding the brand, tracking and monitoring,
loyalty programme construction, and media
planning in the widest sense. This includes
list buying, test construction, targeting,
segmentation, computer modelling and
response analysis. They must also possess an
appreciation of what advertising, direct
marketing, sales promotion, sponsorship and
PR can be expected to contribute.
In her paper for the Account Planning Group,
Baskin (2001) highlighted a range of roles for
the account planner in the modern agency. In
Table I these are referred to as sub-roles
which have been grouped under ``meta-roles''
that describe the principal functions that
account planning incorporates. These may be
contrasted with the four key roles that
Account planner sub-rolesa
Market researcher
Data analyst and interpreter
Qualitative focus group moderator
Information centre
Social anthropologist
Soothsayer/futurologist
Target audience representative/voice of the consumer
Strategic thinker/strategy developer
Media/communications planner
Think piece polemicist
Insight miner
NPD consultant
Writer of the creative brief
Knowledge applicator
Brainstorming facilitator
Bad cop/good cop
Team activist
Crosier et al. (2003) saw as an ``account
planning landscape'' which, they commented,
were not necessarily performed by all
planners: ``voice of the consumer'', ``strategic
pivot'', ``creative catalyst'' and ``client
confidant''.
Researcher
Market researcher
Many account planners have their origins in
market research. Jane Newman, a widely
recognised and respected US based account
planner (one of the first British planners to
cross the Atlantic), sees account planning as
``subsuming'' the market research function.
From Pollitt's writings, it is clear how much
emphasis he placed on this role within the
account planning function. Market research
``craft skills'' may be described as the
backbone of the account planning function.
Account planners need to be conversant with
all relevant quantitative and qualitative,
secondary and primary techniques as
necessary parts of the total planner's
research armoury. However, as identified by
Hackley (2000), emphasis on this vital
research function of the account planner's
job can result in marginalising planners
within agencies as ``mere'' researchers
effectively relegating them as a ``backroom''
activity.
Data analyst and interpreter
Hand-in-hand with market research is the
ability to analyse, interpret and ``make
``sense'' of market data and information.
Whereas many would describe the ultimate
goal is an understanding of consumers the
development of consumer insight, this will
only be achieved through a thorough
understanding of brand relationships within
the marketplace. This will involve what
Pickton and Broderick (2001) have termed
PRESTCOM and SWOT analysis which is an
expansion on the ubiquitously referred to
PEST situation analysis. Their approach
makes explicit within the situation analysis
the need to analyse company and brand
strengths and weaknesses and opportunities
and threats through a comprehensive
evaluation of political, regulatory, economic,
social, technological, competitive,
organisational, and market factors.
Importantly, PRESTCOM analysis advocates
an understanding of competitors,
organisational and market factors which
include an understanding of competing
brands, own brands, brand positioning,
customers, consumers, trade intermediaries
and market influencers. From this, an
Merry Baskin and interpretation of the consumers'
David Pickton relationships with the brand (and other
Account planning from
genesis to revelation competing brands) can be determined as can
be an understanding of the factors
Marketing Intelligence &
Planning influencing those relationships such as the
21/7 [2003] 416-424 impact of other target audience influences.
Qualitative research moderator
This includes focus groups, group
discussions and depth interviews. While it is,
perhaps, a little erroneous to single out a few
research tools from among the many with
which planners should be familiar, these are
ubiquitous forms of research that planners
must know how to facilitate and commission.
Where used, they give the planner (and often
other members of the agency and client team)
opportunities to be face-to-face with
customers and consumers. They have value
in understanding the market, gaining
consumer insight, testing concepts and
pre-testing advertising and other
promotions.
Information centre
Knowledge is the bedrock of the planner's
craft. Knowing how to find material quickly
is key. Secondary data sources provide an
understanding from which primary research
can be developed. The planner is an eclectic
user of information, is a knowledge manager
and an information gatekeeper on behalf of
the agency.
Social anthropologist
With the increasing rate of change and with
technology and information moving at a
breathtaking pace, it is important for
creative and media people to be in touch and
au fait with rapidly evolving cultural and
social trends to ensure their idea's relevance
and reach to the target audience. Monitoring
cultural and social trends is a specialist task
and the findings need to be fed in early to
brand and creative development. An
understanding of the new media, who uses it
and how, is vital to the design and placing of
the creative message. Its value should not be
underestimated. Differentiating between
mere ``fashion'' and genuine cultural trends
requires careful interpretation. In youth
markets, ``coolhunting'' is becoming a
``profession'' in its own right (see also the
article by Nick Southgate in this issue,
pp. 453-461).
Soothsayer/futurologist
Research and market understanding
requires not only a look backwards to what
has previously happened but also a view
forward to predict the possible future. This
involves an understanding of past trends and
likely future outcomes.
Voice of the market
Target audience representative/voice of
the consumer
On the basis of the foregoing, it is clear that
the account planner is in a unique position
within the agency to ensure that a thorough
appreciation of market forces, in general, and
the consumer, in particular, forms the bases
for creative development. As an ``equal''
member of the account/creative team, the
planner is able to augment the development
process by adding a dimension that might
otherwise be relegated in favour of other
perspectives. As Feldwick (2000, p. xii) has
succinctly put it:
Pollitt fought to create a way of working
where the primary purpose of research was
consumer understanding in the service of
intelligent strategy and creative
communication.
With the increase in market, brand and
competitive sophistication, the divergence of
media opportunities, the increasing
emphasis on integrated marketing
communications and the broader strategic
implications of marketing communications
beyond advertising, it is, perhaps, more
appropriate to emphasise the role of the
account planner to incorporate a range of
target audiences as well as consumer insight
into their overall function. For these reasons,
``voice of the market'' is preferred over the oft
quoted role of ``voice of the consumer'' which
now appears too narrow a focus even
recognising its ultimate importance.
Strategist
Strategic thinker/strategy developer
If the creative brief is the pinnacle of the
planner's tangible output, developing the
brand communications strategy is the
precursor task. It follows on logically from
the research and analytical phases and places
the creative solution within a wider
marketing communications context. It is this
recognition of the importance of strategic
focus that has given rise to the need to place
advertising and the development of creative
treatments (as in the early application of
account planning) into a wider context of
marketing communications more generally
and audiences beyond the consumer more
widely. By sharing the strategy with the team
and gaining agreement with the client in the
early stages of campaign development, the
creative and media solutions that follow
[ 421 ]
Merry Baskin and should be seen to be consistent and
David Pickton complementary to the achievement of the
Account planning from desired outcomes. A shared strategy should
genesis to revelation
enable the account team to all ``sing from the
Marketing Intelligence &
Planning same hymn sheet'' and integrate all relevant
21/7 [2003] 416-424 forms of marketing communications to meet
the client's overall goals (see also the article
by Rob Osler in this issue, pp. 435-439).
Media/communications planner
From a communications perspective,
consumers not only consume the brand but
also its communications. An understanding
of this is vital to campaign success. In the
early days of account planning, the agency
would more likely have in-house media
planning and buying. As media moved
outside advertising agencies into specialist
media agencies, the links and relationships
between account planners and media
planners have become less direct. As media
have both fragmented and proliferated
beyond the traditional mass media, the
opportunity for account planners to be media
specialists is more limited. Nevertheless, it is
increasingly more important for the planner
to at least understand the strategic role and
effectiveness of different media, by target and
category and know when and how it is
relevant to use them to achieve the brand's
objectives.
Think piece polemicist
There are aspects of the planner's job that
sometimes entail sitting in a darkened room
with a towel around the head, mulling over
deep thoughts and hypothesising. These
times may be accompanied by a passion or a
fascination for a certain theme. Original
thinking is a powerful tool and when
persuasively and compellingly delivered can
have a real impact on the business being
worked on and on the people being worked
with.
Insight miner
Deriving insight from knowledge is one of the
most important skills a planner can possess.
It is touching on the ``essence'' and not simply
a process of conveying facts. These insights
about the client's business can come from a
variety of areas:
. the consumer;
. the client's culture;
. the marketplace/category;
. the competition;
. the brand (past, present, future) values;
. the product qualities; and
. the advertising and communications
conventions of the category.
Mining all these areas (whether sporting a
virtual helmet with a lamp on the front or
[ 422 ]
not), peering into nooks and crannies without
losing sight of the big picture in order to
identify a key insight that can transform a
client's business, is a real skill (Baskin,
2001, p. 6).
NPD consultant
Involvement in new product development
may not be open as an opportunity to all but,
especially for those agencies working in
multinational packaged goods brands, it is an
area in which a great deal of investment is
placed both in product development and in
marketing communications. This places the
account planner in one of the most
interesting roles involving positioning,
naming and testing through to final launch
and evaluation.
Creative catalyst
Some have referred to account planners as
the ``third creative'' alongside the creative
team and account manager. The role goes
beyond being responsible for producing the
creative brief to being an active team
member in building a bridge between
marketing communications/advertising
strategies and creative solutions.
Writer of the creative brief
The brief is widely considered to be one of the
planner's main outputs, or ``key tangible
deliverable'' in the creative development
process. The brief is ultimately a distillation
of key issues which need to be delivered with
brevity, clarity and ``fertility'' for out of the
brief should spring the ideas that become the
creative solutions. The brief is not a treatise
on the subject of the market, the consumer or
the brand. It takes great skill to interpret the
significant elements into perhaps only a
single page containing the germ of ideas that
will be translated into, hopefully, successful
campaigns by the account team. What
creatives require is a single-minded
proposition out of which the creative
treatment can be developed. It is a major
challenge for account planners to respond to
this requirement.
Knowledge applicator
Information may be a valuable asset but
without appropriate application its value is
limited. It is in the application of knowledge
that planners truly come into their own. To
paraphrase Jon Steel (1998), finding things
out, filtering them, re-thinking them laterally
and then using that knowledge to help
creative people come up with a better idea
easier or faster means that the planners are
doing their jobs properly and making a
Merry Baskin and difference. Not making a difference in this
David Pickton way is a hindrance and you should move out
Account planning from
genesis to revelation of the way and let everyone else get on with
it. Working in a team environment, account
Marketing Intelligence &
Planning planners have the task to create brand
21/7 [2003] 416-424 relevance and distinctiveness.
Brainstorming facilitator
Brainstorming and similar synectic creative
``hot-house'' techniques can be important in
the overall planning process to collectively
produce and share creative ideas and gain
commitment and synergy within the account
team from the outset of the planning process.
Process activist and facilitator
Team activist
Whatever else the account planner's
involvement, her or his activities are deeply
entrenched in communicating and
facilitating a process of development, not just
as a reactionary but as an activist, one who
has a pro-active involvement in campaign
development. As a team player, the account
planner has an opportunity to involve, and be
involved with, other agency members and the
client in the total development process. This
is not to suggest this role is an easy one.
Academic research and practitioner
experiences both testify to the inherent
conflict that can occur. For example, in two
pieces of research, Kover and Goldberg (1995)
and Kover et al. (1995) identified power
struggles over the control of creative output
and that issues of creativity were major
destabilisation factors within agencies.
Hackley (2000) found that despite account
planners acting as a ``buffer'' between
creatives and account management, few large
USA agencies were successful in managing
the tension between the creative sensibilities
of the former and the commercial focus of the
latter (Editor's note: see ``From consumer
insight to advertising strategy: the account
planner's integrative role in creative
advertising development'' by Chris Hackley,
pp. 446-452). Conversely, the experiences of
UK agencies have shown that this ``tension''
can be managed in a spirit of collaboration,
some believing that is actually beneficial to
the creative development process.
Bad cop/good cop
Account managers and account planners
tend to work in pairs despite the fact that
planners are outnumbered 4 : 1 (IPA, 2000).
This team approach frequently allows
opportunities to play complementary roles
when working with creatives (the third part
of the agency team) and clients when
delivering some bad, challenging, alternative
or unexpected views without ruining the
relationship. As the details should be based
as far as possible on objective fact or logically
defensible perspective, the planner should
deliver these as constructively as possible.
What this aspect of the account planner's role
emphasises is that sometimes it is necessary
to take deliberately challenging positions in
order to develop from the status quo. It also
emphasises the account planner's role in
client liaison and in gaining client approval.
Conclusions
Account planning grew out of a need and a
changing advertising industry environment.
From its genesis in the 1960s, it has expanded
from advertising into other marketing
communications agencies and client
marketing departments. As a function and
range of activities, it is performed, as a
necessity, in marketing communications
planning, but not all agencies or clients
employ ``account planners''. In these
instances, account planning will be
subsumed under one or more other activities
and responsibilities. Account planning is a
composite of a wide range of tasks that may
be performed by one or a number of people.
This paper has identified five meta-roles
under which a further range of sub-roles has
been allocated. Identification of these roles
has been principally based upon extensive
industry experience but is supported by the
limited research conducted by others into the
area.
The actual account planning approach
adopted will vary from agency to agency and
from planner to planner. How effectively the
activities and roles are performed are equally
varied. Some are now arguing that to reach
its zenith, account planning needs to be
undertaken in a media neutral, non-biased
environment that can only be offered by
independent strategy ``agencies'' that have no
vested interest in any particular marketing
communications activity or media type. This
may be account planning's new revelation as
it continues to evolve.
In concluding, it is interesting to reflect
upon the emphasis now placed upon the
account planning function by the UK's
Account Planning Group. They were the first
group of planning professionals (anywhere in
the world) and still operate as an active group
promoting effective best practices within the
UK and liaison worldwide. In inviting entries
to their 2001 Planning Awards, their fifth
awards (APG, 2001), they provided the advice
below to entrants. The same issues were
[ 423 ]
Merry Baskin and reflected in the advice given for the following
David Pickton Planning Awards in 2003 (APG, 2003). The
Account planning from
genesis to revelation questions they pose give an insight into those
Marketing Intelligence &
areas that the APG judge to be the
Planning constituents of effective and impactful
21/7 [2003] 416-424 account planning practice:
. What was the process and evidence of
strategic thinking which went into the
creative brief?
. How did this extend into creative
development?
. Was the creative work original and
relevant?
. Did it help inform and inspire media?
The insight which made a difference can
have come from one or more sources, for
example:
. Identifying the correct target audience
. A market or competitive analysis which
led one to recognise alternative
communications.
. Research which unlocked a better
understanding of consumer relationship
with the brand.
. Sensitive creative development research
and/or communications knowledge
gained at that stage, which improves or
alters the creative execution.
The awards in both years offered special
prizes to what the APG adjudged as critical
areas of account planning justifying their
own special merit:
. best consumer insight;
. best strategic insight;
. best creative brief and briefing;
. best contribution to media thinking;
. most innovative use of qualitative
research; and
. best use of research.
Account planning has weathered the storms
and changing fortunes of a turbulent
marketing communications industry over its
relatively brief history. It has grown and
developed. As a function and a service it has
offered agencies the opportunity for
distinctive advantage and competence when
pitching for accounts. From a broader
marketing perspective, it is difficult to argue
against the potential value it can bring to the
planning and management of increasingly
integrated marketing communications.
Much of the criticism it receives is not
centred so much against its potential, but in
how best it can be realised. A question still
remains as to how account planning, itself,
can be managed to achieve its full promise.
Some might have given up trying. For those,
perhaps it is timely to try again. It remains to
[ 424 ]
be seen what this new millennium will reveal
for account planners around the world.
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