The debate rages on… should design be a tool of marketing and sales, or should it pursue purer, more aesthetic goals? As agency creatives from way back, we have to say we long for the days when we could work on projects that had few design constraints and offered opportunities to do a beautifully conceived and produced piece of print collateral that was so cool, hip and edgy, it cried out to be framed and hung for general admiration in the agency lobby. But, if memory serves us, even in the golden days of yore, those projects came along only occasionally. For most projects, agency creatives were compelled to serve that other master, the client.
Writing from the perspective of former agency owners and sometime account service people, we also empathize with the need to develop creative that actually helps achieve business goals. From that standpoint, design is a servant to client demands, and almost subordinate to other agency functions, such as research and strategic planning…
…Which is where account planning comes in.
Account planning bridges the gap between business-oriented researchers and client service, and the creative department that struggles to produce a piece that looks great and stands out from the great mass of drek proliferating from those millions of computer artists. With account planning in place in a creative agency, creatives receive the input and guidance needed to focus in tightly on business goals, and still create work they can proudly boast about to their peers and relations.
If the Client Ain’t Happy…
…Ain’t nobody happy, as the saying goes. Account planning satisfies the client’s need to make business sense of agency creative, and to somehow justify the expenditure on marketing and creative services. Account planning provides cogent arguments for why one particular campaign concept has greater potential value than another; how the campaign will target the desired audiences; and how the audiences will be motivated to a positive action in response. It takes some of the mystery out of the creative process and gives clients a basis for assessing campaign results.
Meanwhile, Back at the Mac…
The creatives, meanwhile, have detailed and very focused input to help them devise creative that has a better chance to reach the target, and spur a desired action. Account planning frees creatives to focus on making the campaign look great, while delivering an agreed-upon message with maximum impact to just the right audience.
The creatives are happier and more confident their work will meet with account executive and client approval. AEs cease pulling out their hair over off-target concepts; and the fight to be able to do good work becomes unnecessary, since the ability to do good work is enhanced. And once again, there can be peace across the land.
Account Planning Is About Relevance
Agencies that choose to embrace account planning as a key service and methodology should keep in mind the fundamental premise of this strategic tool:
To engage the target audience by talking about what THEY need—
not impose the marketer’s agenda on them.
By researching and studying the audience, planners learn how to view strategies and creative executions from the audience point of view. They therefore serve as the voice of the audience in bringing many different disciplines and marketing points of view to a common, agreed-upon strategy. Account planning helps marketers arrive at a truly relevant and truthful position—one that sells and whose results can be measured.
Finally, account planning enhances definition of the advertising/marketing end goal. It helps to focus efforts on the desired end result, the effect that the marketer wishes to achieve, while delivering a message the audience wants to hear. It also assists development of measurement and analysis methods, to gain a clear picture of ROI.
To sum up, account planning:
- Helps break down the conflict between research and creative, because it is applied at the strategy stage, before the creative team begins concepting, rather than at the testing stage when traditional ad research methods used to enter the process.
- Supplies needed information and insight to help the agency team develop creative that is innovative and on target.
- Removes the mystique from research, examining it “warts and all” to expose its limitations as well as its uses.
- Adds to the dialogue with client marketing and research people, helping them recognize that research is not iron-clad certainty, but open to perception and interpretation.
- Helps to more consistently deliver better, more effective advertising and marketing to the client.
- Makes the agency work better, and makes the work “work.”
