Account Planning

Advertising Account Planning: A Practical Guide - Review This is a great advertising book for Account Planning. It's short and concise chapters helped me a lot for my exam and coursework (yes i actually bought this!). Highlighting the hell out of this book aided my understanding of the area. It shows how to do an account plan for a campaign with step by step analysis in the advertising agency style. Which i used to get a surprise 1st in my account planning exam! (ego rub) Whilst i can't guarantee this will make you a genius planner, Account Planning does teach you how to pick out the key propositions of a brand and target audiences for campaigns and how to interrogate the brand. It's truly a useful book for anyone interested in advertising courses and how to plan advertising and marketing. Amazon is where i tend to buy all my books for Uni from, check it out.


Account Planning

Before starting my advertising course, I wasn't sure exactly what the 'Account Planner' did.

AP is the area that should bring objectivity to the process, bringing the consumer into the equation and influencing the creative process. The Account Planner should find a key proposition that is motivating to the consumer, differentating from competitors and true to the product. Basically, it is finding the golden thread or key insight.

The role of the account planner is large, from chosing the target audience, understanding their key insights, determining a position for the brand, developing a communications strategy and setting media/creative stratgies. The part of the process that brings all of this together is 'the creative brief'.

  Look out for a future post all about the process of 'the creative brief'.



What is the Creative Brief?

As previously mentioned, the creative brief is part of the Account Planners process in aiding the Creatives.


The creative brief is there to give direction to the Creative team as they search for a creative concept (Wells, 2006).
It is there to give clarity to all involved in the campaign. Typically it would include; the problem to be solved, the aims and objectives, the target audience, the positioning strategy, the type of creative strategy, tone of voice and execution considerations. Different agencies tend to have a different format that they follow. Some may be outlined by a number of questions such as 'What is the key benefit?' and other formats may include any additional points that will help the creative, such as the role of the communications as a whole.


We were given a live brief to produce a document for Radio One. The final stages of the document was to produce a Creative Brief. I found the whole process exciting and it highlighted the importance of insights in developing a campaign. The insight must be a reflection of the consumer and it can either be emotionally driven or for a functional benefit. For anyone wanting to get into advertising, have a look at Account Planning books and practise developing a creative brief. Even if you do not want to go into this area, Account Planners will often communicate with account management, creatives, the client etc. So knowledge of what they do will be useful.


I will soon upload key Account Planning books, so keep an eye out!!