The Future Of The Account Planner
I recently spoke to Glyn Britton from Albion (me and Glyn go way back....well, the Villandry in February!) and asked him for some opinions on the future of account planning and the industry in general for my last assignment for my course, which is arguably a blank canvas, so I am going to colour it in in my beautiful Northern pondery way!
I thought this comment was the most interesting, I asked Glyn how he thought skills in account planning will evolve over the next five years for agencies to provide effective commercial communications in the modern digital landscape, and here's what he had to say:
"I think we’ll lose the title of account planner, because it’s silly and doesn’t make sense to clients. I think interest and responsibility for strategy, understanding and ideas will become more evenly spread across all agency people. In this world we need to become more grown-up (no more ‘I’m too intellectual for timekeeping’), action-oriented (less clever-but-ultimately-meaningless thinking) and less self-concerned (more work, less blogging)."
More work, less bloggin ay?! This could make a lot of sense to those employed planners out there, but I do like my outlet, it goes alongside my planning skewed assignments/placement strategising documents/creative briefs and campaign plans that make up my pro-active planning world. So, I think that I am making wise moves as a junior.
A lot has been said recently concerning the flattening of agency structures and roles to ensure efficiency and efficacy of the business in the future landscape. The removal of the title of 'planner' sounds a bit odd in the sense that if skills and roles are just absorbed into every agency person, would the client really know what was going on, who was in charge of which processes? Probably. There would end up being an altered agency structure, where there would be 'brand responsibility teams', arguably some people would be better at some things than others (planners at thinking than drawing up some creative genius), but whatever the brand needs the most, the agency should decide who is best for the roles required. This is much easier to do in a small agency environment, but saying that though, I don't want the title of 'account planner' to disappear! It may be around for a lot longer than we anticipate if big agencies continue working in silos, however, I guess they could re-structure and base teams on skill sets rather than job roles. This would alter pay. And could make the world implode!
In a previous post Collaboration saves lives! I said how people within agencies as well and agency-on-agency interaction needs to be collaborative in the future to maintain firm business rigour to cope in this disparate environment we live in. Another problem with arranging and structuring skill sets is deciding what agencies and clients think is important. Clearly both parties want the most effective communications. I think some agencies are stuck with the idea that if they don't house all of the necessary skills under their agency brand, they are somehow inferior. However, an agency can be collaborative heroes bringing together the industry's finest or be complete in-house skills-whores and both produce exceptionally great work.
I thought this comment was the most interesting, I asked Glyn how he thought skills in account planning will evolve over the next five years for agencies to provide effective commercial communications in the modern digital landscape, and here's what he had to say:
"I think we’ll lose the title of account planner, because it’s silly and doesn’t make sense to clients. I think interest and responsibility for strategy, understanding and ideas will become more evenly spread across all agency people. In this world we need to become more grown-up (no more ‘I’m too intellectual for timekeeping’), action-oriented (less clever-but-ultimately-meaningless thinking) and less self-concerned (more work, less blogging)."
More work, less bloggin ay?! This could make a lot of sense to those employed planners out there, but I do like my outlet, it goes alongside my planning skewed assignments/placement strategising documents/creative briefs and campaign plans that make up my pro-active planning world. So, I think that I am making wise moves as a junior.
A lot has been said recently concerning the flattening of agency structures and roles to ensure efficiency and efficacy of the business in the future landscape. The removal of the title of 'planner' sounds a bit odd in the sense that if skills and roles are just absorbed into every agency person, would the client really know what was going on, who was in charge of which processes? Probably. There would end up being an altered agency structure, where there would be 'brand responsibility teams', arguably some people would be better at some things than others (planners at thinking than drawing up some creative genius), but whatever the brand needs the most, the agency should decide who is best for the roles required. This is much easier to do in a small agency environment, but saying that though, I don't want the title of 'account planner' to disappear! It may be around for a lot longer than we anticipate if big agencies continue working in silos, however, I guess they could re-structure and base teams on skill sets rather than job roles. This would alter pay. And could make the world implode!
In a previous post Collaboration saves lives! I said how people within agencies as well and agency-on-agency interaction needs to be collaborative in the future to maintain firm business rigour to cope in this disparate environment we live in. Another problem with arranging and structuring skill sets is deciding what agencies and clients think is important. Clearly both parties want the most effective communications. I think some agencies are stuck with the idea that if they don't house all of the necessary skills under their agency brand, they are somehow inferior. However, an agency can be collaborative heroes bringing together the industry's finest or be complete in-house skills-whores and both produce exceptionally great work.
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