I legitimately want to work well with creative. As one team. Can we put our egos aside and get over this account - creative divide please? 🙄

Don't look at me-I love my Account team...for the most part. #1 thing you can do to earn the trust of Creatives is not treat them as a commodity to be squeezed. When your Creatives see you pushing back on the client to protect their nights/weekends/holidays, they'll be willing to do it when it's necessary. When you push for a creative idea that's right, when what the client wants is wrong, your Creatives will respect you for trying. Conversely, if your creatives are working late because you agreed to a bullshit timeline, and you say, "O.K.-you don't need me for anything, right? I'm going to hit the gym and head home. Email me if you need anything."...you can rest assured that the words, "Fuck. You." were uttered the second you were out of earshot. And they relayed the story amongst themselves for the next month. And, yes, some Creatives are just a-holes. So are some AEs. Are you dealing with a divide, or just an a-hole?

Rule #1 for all sides to learn first - understand you signed up to work in a SERVICE business!! Tons of people fundamentally don't get that! It's not about you personally, your company (agency) is getting paid by another company to deliver a professional service for them / help them figure out how to solve their problems in any context. It's commissioned work. Teams who work well together are usually those who get it and their attitude is based on this understanding, then the different functions on the team support each other better.

I'd love to too. But when the client is demanding to know the font sizes for all my text and he account person isn't shutting that down right away, I'm not going to be too happy. Respect what I do and all the knowledge and experience that goes into it and pass that respect into the client. Then we'll get along great.

AE, it is a common problem that account thinks we're against the "one team, one dream" mentality. Speaking of, how often are you showing the emails that you send to the client to your copywriters? What about your powerpoint decks? How about trips to market research or one off meetings at the client? Do you always bring copy and art with you, or do you fear that will waste client resources? That's the problem. You want to help make the creative better, but you also don't want us involved in your business. (I'm speaking generally).

I give my creative team the opportunity to present their work and sit in on meetings all the time. I share research and strategies with them before they're presented. Each team has talents that the other doesn't have, so I very much value what they do. I also fight for their work and have no problem pushing back on clients (neither do the AEs on my team). Our creative team is great and we were working really well together until a recent power trip from creative management.

Not to me, the interference from management sounds like idiotic power tripping.

It 100% is. Everyone else works great together and we have a great relationship. Might need to grab coffee on Monday to chat.

🙌🏽

It is how you are working that's causing the problem. Production line, no collaboration. You sound be involved in defining business problem, account in solving.

Sounds like a personal problem