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If you’re white like me it’s so important to realize that we were raised in a society where institutionalized racism is normalized, and we were born with privilege. You can’t choose the color of your skin, but you can choose to put ego aside and reflect on why this isn’t happening to me, and be vocal about being anti-racist.
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Rising Star
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This pendulum always swings back and forth.
Sure, trim the fat on AM staff that are just middlemen, but good AM leads do way more than that and set Creatives up for success.
Also, do you want creatives to focus on creative, or would you rather they spend time on account management things and growing the business? Many creatives are good at selling creative and little else. That’s fine for creative shops, but not so great for integrated agencies where you have multiple disciplines.
Every time I see account management cut from the business, it works for a period, until it doesn’t. But I’m in account management, and OP is a CD, so we both have dogs in this fight 😉.
Good account people are valuable. Lots aren’t.
Good strategists are valuable. Lots aren’t.
Good creatives are valuable. Lots aren’t.
Good....
I’ve heard many clients say they would like more direct access to creative leadership. I’ve never once heard a client say they wanted a creative director to manage their business.
Chief
Truth
Pro
We only have that many account managers because clients don’t put their shit together and don’t do their job.
This 👆🏼
Rising Star
At some agencies, Project Managers already do their job.
Let’s be honest, what client wants a 23yr old with a liberal arts degree managing their account and writing project scopes? No client wants that. They want deep subject matter experts in every seat at the table. That’s what they pay for. Look at how consultancies staff. Client facing teams don’t look like sororities at a consultancy. They are seasoned professionals.
D51 I can assure they do. Have worked for Publicis, IPG and WPP’s largest agencies and it happened at every single one. It’s increasingly become more common in the past decade. Listen and learn because you are obviously too senior or too insulated to know what’s actually going down these days.
If memory serves, when Droga started they didn’t really have account people. That is obviously no longer the case. Great account people make a difference. One of the biggest differences I found between WK and almost everywhere else I have worked is that their account teams do their jobs so well.
Chief
I've had garbage AMs and good AMs all at the same agency. But I still don't exactly know what they do day-to-day lol
The problem I have with a lot of Account Managers is them just rolling over for clients. Often times I feel like AMs work for the client, not the agency. The bad ones are cowards unwilling to pushback on anything.
The best account people:
1. Come from a practice background and understand what it takes to implement the work
2. Have fantastic human relationships with the client teams
3. Know when to involve the practice folks with clients and when to shield the practices from BS client fluff.
4. Can sell the hell out of work.
5. Anticipates client questions and sets the teams up for success.
If your account folks tick these boxes, they are critical to your agency.
If your account people don’t tick any of these boxes, then yes, they are useless. Client shouldn’t pay for someone to take orders and just “get back to you on that”.
But your account functions aren’t going anywhere. These roles have to be owned by someone, whether or not you have official “account management” folks or not.
No they won’t for the following reasons:
1. They write the scopes so they are the last to go.
2. No one else wants to do their jobs now.
3. Planners mostly don’t really want to talk to clients.
4. Most project managers don’t know enough to talk to the clients and be helpful on the account work.
They aren’t going anywhere. Not most of them anyway
The irony is that back in the olden days account people handled strategy and budgets and timelines. When clients forced fees to go from commission-based to hourly-based we split the role into three jobs to capture back the lost revenue.
Pro
And good account managers would be better strategists than the strategists we have today.
The AM role is all over the place. I find a lot of clients outsourcing roles and tasks that would be better served by internal hires because they can’t get the positions approved internally. For example, the account person who has admin responsibilities for social accounts.
I think this is one of the main reasons for bloated account teams. Also, a lot of junior account people end up being low level PMs which essentially traffic work and coordinate between agency departments. I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with account managers being thought of as PMs but there is more value when those roles are externally facing and have responsibility for defining objectives and budgets - more akin to PM roles on the client side.
One quick thing... account mgmt definitively do not ‘take up the salaries.’ I’ve run AM depts and financials at big and small shops. Creative far and away make significantly more than an account person at a similar level.
There might be more account people on a client business but it’s still weighted creative in where the money sits.
That said, if I were still running a Dept I’d be very interested in rethinking how we structure an agency to better function and eliminate nonsense. And I’d agree in many cases AM’s get in the way... and that’s when we know an agency has no grasp on what account mgmt is good for.
I’d love to see a small
Layer of business leaders oversee the macro trajectory of a business and skilled PMs & strategists handle the rest.
The army of account people is a symptom of the real and perceived inefficiencies in agencies. Many account people are filling low level project management and administrative roles. I’d argue that some of the work could be collapsed into production and PM roles and pushing back on clients who ask account teams to crank out their decks for them.
It’s also interesting to compare account management structures in digital shops to more traditional creative agencies. I think there are fewer account management titles and more PMs and producers as well as business consultants.
Another thought is perhaps COVID is forcing agencies to adopt new agile-like processes and better technologies to manage workflow.
Rising Star
So this article’s proposition, that account management has gotten too big it has less urgent things to accomplish, and so could shrunk significantly and save agencies those salaries, seems from these comments to be fair.
Pro
Who would do their job?
Project management tools are the norm these days. So long as you have a producer or project manager setting things up for the team you’re set. It’s not so much getting rid of AMs as it’s redefining their roles.
Pro
I struggle with Account people because most of them can't operate without the output people in every meeting.
They rarely can answer a question without an output person writing it for them.
I have had one AM, I've ever "needed." Everyone else is in the way and many of them create problems because they don't understand what is being said.
I rather just be in those meetings, respond to the client, and have a PM.
That’s a shame you don’t have strong account people - they should be tied to the foundation of the strategies - be able to effectively sell in the work - and have influence over the client based on their history of strategic thinking - and manage the account from a business standpoint - something most creatives would be wasting their time doing . You should fight for better account people as they can really enhance business
Rising Star
I’m neither of those people are not at their level, but I do believe we could cut account management down by about 2/3. Staff it like strategic planning where you have one head of the department and then one mid-level on each account and that’s about it. Then expect the senior creative directors or group creative directors to be able to have business conversations with their clients.
Pro
Never going to happen. That’s also not a typical staffing structure when it comes to strategy...most serious clients want seniority in account and strategy - certainly not just mid levels. They also want to have business conversations with business people not creatives.
Rising Star
So much of what they do is reporting and billing and synthesizing decks and hand holding and more reporting. If clients didn’t ask for that stuff, we wouldn’t need so many account people, but they still expect a deck to present everything and so it goes...
Chief
Is it possible clients only expect this stuff because it’s the way it’s always been? And if an agency said, project managers will do that, and creative directors and strategist will talk to you about your business goals and solutions, but they wouldn’t expect any more? I mean we all expected horses until Ford invented cars
There’s another article on Campaign where agency leaders respond to the idea that account management is no longer needed or that it needs to evolve. Look at the difference in the responses of Nils Leonard at Uncommon and Polly McMorrow at BBH. Nils feels cohesive and inspiring, that account people who do their job properly are essential to the business. Polly feels divisive, saying that agencies exist to make creative but essentially account people are what make it go. And, at the moment, I would say the success of their respective agencies seems to reflect which one is more effective. Creative bias on my part no doubt, but interested to hear what people think.