I feel like account management is increasingly becoming the “meetings and deadlines” department.

They throw client requests at creatives and strategy. They have no clue what the client wants or needs, they don’t ask questions to the client and just expect creatives and strategy to figure it all out while they build timelines and due dates. When you ask them questions their best answers are “let’s connect on this offline”

Change my mind.

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I notice the newer generation of AEs don’t manage the client/agency relationship, don’t set expectations or boundaries, and are scared to death to say “No” to anything the client has to say. They’re just glorified note takers and email jockeys.

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this has been my experience too - there is such a fear of saying no, and 0 regard for what the agency is going through...it's FRUSTRATING

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Find yourself an account team that loves the creative as much as you do. Trust me, we aren’t all bad. Our creatives call account folks their partners and vice versa. We trust each other implicitly. And we have a long tenured client, won creative and strat awards, and actually like one another.

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your account people are creating timelines?

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funny

They review timelines and allocate resources

If we are gonna start on generalizations, strategists spend two weeks on Google, unlocking the crazy insight, “parents care about what touches their child’s skin, thus, “Pamper’s pampers your baby.” And then gives the creative team 24hrs to turn work around.

Or finds a single observation and misstates it as general fact.

Or takes a one to three sentence client brief and distills it to four pages.

Or takes up 40m of the 1hr client review, “setting up the work” with 90% information that is not new for the client.

funny

1/2 the time clients need that setup because so many of them forget about the strategy behind the brand they are hired to manage. I’ve met far more aloof clients than smart ones. 👀

And lots of times they look for “strategic insight” when all they really just need to do is spend 5 minutes critically thinking…

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👏 👏 👏

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I (media) sometimes work with a creative team and it does seem that their account people are there to primarily echo the marcomm clients & never check them for sense, feasibility or any kind of strategy… and they also play telephone of client wishes to my media team which is like the funnnnnnnest thing ever 🤢

SryIdontwork4u

funny

They’re just glorified fax machines. Strategy needs to build inroads with clients directly. When I was in strat I built the relationships and AE’s would ask me for updates. Get proactive.

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@S2 - good strategists do.

Nailed it

It’s been like that for a while I think.

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