MIP Special Issue - Account Planning

Word Count 6415

Account Planning – from Genesis to Revelation

Merry Baskin

Baskin Shark, Cirencester, UK

David Pickton

Department of Marketing, Leicester Business School, De Montfort University,

UK

Keywords

Account planning, advertising, agencies, account planning group, account

planner roles

ABSTRACT

Modified abstract requested by the publisher who wanted something shorter

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 1960’s. 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.

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This paper provides an introductory overview of account planning within the
context of a Special Issue of papers that will look at various aspects of the
account planning function. Its purpose is to trace the origins of account
planning, and identify its development and role from its genesis in the early
1960s in the UK to its current status in 2003.

The function of account planning grew out of dissatisfaction with advertising

agencies’ ability to meet the challenges they were facing. Two key
protagonists (Stephen King and Stanley Pollitt) of what was to become known
as account planning set about structuring their respective agencies, J. Walter
Thompson and Boasse Massimi and Pollitt, to facilitate a new account team
role which combined elements of research and planning to inform creative
development. Its aim was to provide the guidance and direction needed to
focus on consumer insight to drive successful creative solutions.

Since those early beginnings, a changing advertising environment fuelled

account planning’s exodus as it ‘went international’ and widened its scope into
other marketing communications fields that extend beyond advertising. The
paper suggests that there are five significant principal roles (meta-roles) that
can be identified for today’s account planners: ‘researcher’, ‘voice of the
market’, ‘strategist’, ‘creative catalyst’ and ‘process activist and facilitator’ into
which a variety of sub-roles may be categorised. These roles are expansive.
Some suggest they are too broad and require too many specialist skills for
any single account planner to accommodate.

While the paper principally brings us to the current day, it is noted that
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
marketing communications strategy consultancies.

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 J. Walter Thompson (JWT) and Boasse Massimi Pollitt
(BMP) advertising agencies in London. Since its early genesis in advertising,
account planning 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 1970’s, 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 agencies extending as
far as the US and Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, Scandinavia, Chile, Brazil,
China and various other parts of Europe. And these are just the countries that

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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), 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 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” (p.vii).

A Brief History of Account Planning – its genesis, antecedents and

impetus for growth

Every client organisation 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 excellent position to fulfil
the role of generating market understanding. From the 50’s, ‘Marketing’ and
‘Marketing Plans’ were executed by the ad agency. They pioneered market
research – main agencies either had large research departments or research
subsidiaries. They created test kitchens for NPD, devised TV programming,
etc. 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).

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However, through the 60s 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)
negatively comments on this variety (and too typically, inappropriateness) of
working practices as lying at the root of

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 “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”. (p. xii)

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” (p.2). The name,
‘Account Planning’, was, in fact, coined by Tony Stead at a JWT awayday in
1968, attended by both media planners and account people from the
marketing department. As King’s new department was to comprise a hybrid -
selected folk from both disciplines, he simply merged the titles together. And
so, as Baskin (2001) observes, “we have been saddled with one of the most
obfuscatory job titles ever since” (p.2). 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, it’s 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 60s, 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

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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 20th 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
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, 1998). 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), 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. (Editors
note, see The Interface between Account Planning and Media Planning – a
practitioner perspective by Will Collin). What also happened is that 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,

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2003), “The continuing expansion of the account planning discipline beyond
the traditional ‘ad agency’ is something we have seen reflected in our
membership (APG) profile”.

Furthermore, as part of its development and 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. The
account planner is more than the voice of the consumer; s/he is the ‘voice of
the market’. There is now evidence of independent marketing communications
strategy agencies that can provide truly media neutral 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:

▪ 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

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 ▪ 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
▪ approval stage
involving working with the account team in gaining client approval
▪ post-campaign stage
involving tracking and evaluation

These four task stages can be mapped onto the roles identified later in Figure
1. 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” (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’être 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 writings that, “the way account planning works varies from agency to
agency and, even within an agency, from planner to planner” (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. Baldwin, planning
director at IMP direct marketing agency, (reported in Crawford, 1994) 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

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 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” (p36).

In her paper for the AGP, Baskin (2001) highlighted a range of roles for the
account planner in the modern agency. In Figure 1 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 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’.

[INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE]

Researcher
Market researcher
Many account planners have their origins in market research. Jane Newman,
a widely recognised and respected American account planner, sees account
planning as ‘subsuming’ the agency 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,

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customers, consumers, trade intermediaries and market influencers. From
this, an interpretation of the consumers’ relationships with the brand (and
other competing brands) can be determined as can be an understanding of
the factors influencing those relationships such as the impact of other target
audience influences.

Qualitative focus group moderator

It is, perhaps, erroneous to single out this research tool from among the many
with which planners should be familiar. However, focus groups are a
ubiquitous research tool, at least within the context of UK agency research.
The planner must know how to use them and commission them as
appropriate. Where used, it gives the planner (and often other members of the
agency and client team) opportunities to be face-to-face with 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 it is vital to the design and placing of the creative
message, 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. (Editors note:
see ‘Coolhunting, Account Planning and Chillin’ with Aristotle’ by Nick
Southgate)

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 and 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

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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 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 should be seen to be consistent and complementary to
the achievement of the desired outcomes. A shared strategy should enable
the account team to all ‘sing from the same hymnsheet’ and integrate all
relevant forms of marketing communications to meet the client’s overall goals
(Editor’s note: see Infusing Business and Brand Strategies into Account
Planning by Rob Osler).

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

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There are aspects of the planner’s job that sometimes entail sitting in a
darkened room with a towel around your head, mulling over deep thoughts,
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
The advertising and communications conventions of the category

“Mining all these areas (whether sporting a virtual helmet with a lamp
on the front or not), peering into nooks and crannies without loosing
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
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 if the most interesting roles from 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

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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 difference. Not making a difference
in this way is a hindrance and you should move out of the way and let
everyone else get on with it. In working in a team environment, account
planners have the task to create brand 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 colleagues (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). 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 survey, 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

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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. 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 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 reflected in the advice given for the following Planning Awards in
2003 (6th APG Awards, 2003). The questions they pose give an insight into
those areas that the APG judge to be the constituents of effective and
impactful 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?

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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
▪ Best use of research.

References

APG (2001) 5th Account Planning Awards www.apg.org.uk

APG (2003) 6th Account Planning Awards www.apg.org.uk
Bartle, J. (2003) Comments on the 2001 APG Awards, www.apg.org.uk
Baskin, M. (2000) Preface. In P. Feldwick (ed) Pollitt on Planning, Henley-on-
Thames, Admap Publications
Baskin, M. (2001) What is Account Planning? (And what do account planners
do exactly?) A revised Millennium Definition. www.apg.org.uk
Crawford, M. (1994) The Art of Planning. Promotions and Incentives April
34-38
Crosier, K., Grant, I. and Gilmore, C. (2003) Account Planning in Scottish
Advertising Agencies: a discipline in transition. Journal of Marketing
Communications Vol 9 pp 1-15
D’Souza, S. (1986) What is Account Planning? www.apg.org.uk
Edwards, P. (1997) Planning Inputs into the Client’s Business. In A. Cooper
(ed) How to Plan Advertising 2nd edition, London, Cassell
Feldwick, P. (ed) (2000) Pollitt on Planning. Henley-on-Thames, Admap
Publications
Franz, F (2000) Better Planning for Integrated Communications. Admap Vol
35, No 1, pp. 42-44
Hackley, C. (2000) Silent Running: tacit, discursive and psychological aspects
of management in a top UK advertising agency. British Journal of
Management, Vol 11, No 3, pp. 239-254
IPA (2000) Agency Census 1999: A report on employment in IPA member
agencies. IPA, January
IPA (2003) Agency Census 2002: A report on employment in IPA member
agencies. IPA, January

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King, S. (1989) The Anatomy of Account Planning. Admap Vol 24, No.11 pp.
36-38
Kover, A.J. and Goldberg, S.M. (1995) The Games Copyrighters Play: conflict,
quasi-control, a new proposal. Journal of Advertising Research Vol 35 No 4
pp. 52-68
Kover, A.J., Goldberg, S.M. and James, W.L. (1995) Creativity vs.
Effectiveness? An integrating classification for advertising. Journal of
Advertising Research Vol 35 No 6 pp.29-41
Pickton, D and Broderick, A. (2001) Integrated Marketing Communications.
Harlow, Financial Times Prentice Hall
Pollitt, S. (1979) How I Started Account Planning in Agencies. Campaign (April
20) pp. 29-30
Steel, J. (1998) Truth, Lies and Advertising – The Art of Account Planning.
New York, Wiley

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Figure 1 Account Planner Roles

Account Planner – Account Planner -

Meta-Roles Sub-Roles (Baskin 2001)

Researcher • Market researcher

• Data analyst and interpreter
• Qualitative focus group moderator
• Information centre
• Social anthropologist
• Soothsayer / futurologist

Voice of the Market • Target audience representative / voice of the

consumer

Strategist • Strategic thinker / strategy developer

• Media / communications planner
• Think piece polemicist
• Insight miner
• NPD consultant

Creative Catalyst • Writer of the creative brief

• Knowledge applicator
• Brainstorming facilitator

Process Activist and • Bad cop / good cop

Facilitator • Team activist

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