The Adnostic

"Well," I always say, "I'm an Account Planner."

This statement is always countered with the following question, "What's an 'Account Planner?'" As though I had made it up or it doesn't really exist and I'm really just a 'Sanitation Engineer' trying to pass as something more socially acceptable, and by that I mean something virtually unheard of.

It's okay, I get it. Unless you work in advertising or the marketing department of a very large company, there is no reason for to have ever heard of an 'Account Planner," and even then there are no guarantees. If I had a nickel for every time a recruiter, who specializes in staffing for the advertising industry, called me about a Media Planning position with such-and-such company only to be confused when I would correct said recruiter and explain that I don't do media.

"But you're a Planner...."

"An Account Planner, not a Media Planner."

The poor person must have hung up thinking I was some glorified version of an Account Coordinator (entry level Account Executive with no experience).

I get it. It's not an obvious title. It's not like 'Neurosurgeon,' which you can immediately tie to medicine and surgery and that Patrick Dempsey character on Grey's Anatomy who never has anything better to do than hang about, sleep with interns, and be referred to as "McDreamy." Yeah, Account Planner is a bit obscure and on top of that they haven't made a TV show about a character in my profession yet. Not that a show like that would ever get green lighted, but that's another post.

An Account Planner is many things. They are Consumer Behaviorists, Market Researchers, Marketers, Marketing Strategists, Creative Thinkers, and Analysts. Their main job is to take a bunch of data, analyze it to death until they get stories or insights that can attribute to a either a minute or greater trend regarding the clients product and then present this in a meaningful way to the client or creative team so that an effective ad campaign can be created. Making it helpful that a Planner has both of their left and right brains fully functional.

Once the campaign is concepted, or sometimes even fully formed, it is then the Planner's job to test the concept among potential consumers. This is where we have the reputation of killing perfectly great creative and turning it into something bland and accessible that even a retarded seven year old will cheer. We prefer to avoid this kind of outcome.

But that doesn't explain everything....

Here are a few links from a planner in Northern England which provide a few rules on being a successful planner, which may (or may not) give you a better insight into my career of choice:

Northern Planner on working with Account Executives.

Northern Planner on working with Creatives.

My favorite rule is concerning humility and usefulness, "Planners are not essential. Creatives and account people did fine before planners came along. Planners need to persuade people to want them there. For creatives, being useful means two things: i) Getting their work through research and clients ii) Useful stuff, inspiration and guidance."

A lot of the web designers I met at SXSW weren't sure how someone like myself could be useful or necessary. For the most part, it's a correct impression. I know I'm not necessary. Designers and copywriters can probably do a perfectly good job without me. But, I'm really nice to have. Imagine having someone in house who's job it is to do all the consumer and competitive research so that creatives can get back to what they do best - being creative and coming up with brilliant ideas; and then Account Executives can concentrate on just keeping their clients happy and generating new business. Wouldn’t that be marvelous?

I'm not a necessity for any advertising or design firm, I realize this, but I can be really nice to have around.