Accounts Executive or Director: Key Executive of Agency

The agency’s key executive is Accounts Executive (he is accounts director when he is a member of the Board in case of a limited agency).

Account in advertising parlance means a client. Thus Hindustan Lever is an account for Lintas, or ITC is an account for Lintas. This accounts executive is a link between the agency and client.

• Functions of Accounts Executives

• He understands what the client wants. He has to get this done through his agency. The marketing or sales or advertising department of the client briefs him. He communicates this to the agency people. He is also called client service executive. Account Planning or Client Servicing.

An ad agency’s primary function is to create advertising, and account-planning function provides a basis for this.

Account Planner has to perform a number of functions
1. Planning the objectives of the advertising: Here he makes use of skills of analysis, synthesis, logic and insight.
2. Selecting and evaluating research feedback on the basis of which the team makes judgments and takes decisions.
3. Making the objective and the feedback relevant and stimulating to the rest of the team particularly the creative.

An account planner may not head the account team mayor. But the above function should be attended to. It is better to invest a separate person with the composite responsibility. The positive use of research is establishing a dialogue between the creative team and the consumer is a valuable contribution that’ a planner can make.

The importance of account management in client-agency relationship is on the decline. Successful account managers are true experts on their client’s brand and competitions, and have a clear point of view. Clients talk to them, and use then as sounding boards. The client seeks their advice.

They are also used as surrogate brand managers, especially for getting things done. Account managers lacking expertise face the threat of extinction.

Planning in agencies conforms to brand responses – the desired responses that a brand’s advertising should generate. But when we advertise, apart from brand responses we also generate advertising responses, – effects on our target audience like amusement, education, entertainment moving effect etc. Many times, these advertising responses are an essential part of what the brand is offering the consumer. Failure to see advertising responses makes our planning remote and ineffective.

Modern days agencies have two major sections.

The two sides are supplementary to each other. Now the creative section has a team of bright, talented copywriters who do the wording of an advertisement. Copywriters contribute to the theme of an advertisement, like a college girl asking another the secret of her flawless complexion, and as an answer coming to know that it is Clearasil Cream. Now this is called copy platform. These copywriters report to their head, who may be called Copy Chief’ or Chief’ Copywriter.

But merely the copy is not enough. The visualiser puts on paper what has been thought out by the copywriter. He in fact designs the ad. He takes the help of layout artists, typographers’ and finished artists who prepare the final artwork. As you will see, creative energies of copywriters must be coordinated with the design energies of the visualisers. The person who performs this role is called the Creative Director. So now we can put here the organizational structure of the Creative Section of an ad agency.

Now we shall come to the studio-based production department, which delivers a complete approved ad copy. This department is in charge of the production manager who has several assistants. For prints ads, these people do typography, lettering, blocks, stereos, and electros. They also supply text and artwork for photogravure process. Production manager organizes the workflow (copy and artwork proofs and corrections – final copy as per time schedule). In larger agencies this workflow is under the control of a traffic controller. Some part of the production work can be bought from free-lance sources.

After this the Media planner understands the budget and how the ad is to allocated in various medias.

In addition to this the agencies also have a Marketing Research Department, which does product research, consumer research, positioning studies, price and distribution research, sales and packaging research and motivational research.

The administrative manager, with office, accounts and finance functions are few of the other departments. Some agencies have a separate Public Relations cell. So this is what an agency looks like.

What an ad agency looks like

The top management of an ad organization consists of a Plan Board. This comprises of a committee of department heads, be it media, accounts, PR, creative, etc. it plans campaigns by consensus.

The other is the Review Board. This committee reviews and criticizes a campaign, which it has not planned or created.