This presentation will give a good orientation to those that want to start a career as an account planner in the advertising agency industry

1. ACCOUNT
PLANNING
QUICK OVERVIEW

2. CONTENT
Origins of Account Planning
Role of Planning in the Agency
What do Account Planners do?
Personality of an Account Planner

3. ORIGINS OF
PLANNING

4. HISTORY
Sometime in history (1960’s) an advertising man realized that the customer
needs to be more part of the advertising process.
The researcher was not involved in the campaign process. The researches
was an outsider and didn’t have much of an impact.
The account planner came in to be the voice of the consumer in the agency.
Was introduced widely in the mid 80’s but gained popularity in the 90s
Advertising agencies started yielding more effective communications
after the account planning was introduced

5. ROLE OF
PLANNING
IN THE
AGENCY

6. AGENCY ROLES
Client
• business
objectives
Account
Planning
• What
should be
said
Creative
• How it
should be
said
Client
Servicing:
Leading the
process and
ensuring it is
said on time,
within budget
and according
to client
expectations

7. PLACE OF PLANNING
Research Planning Creative
Planning filled the gap between research and the creative process

8. CONTRIBUTORS TO A
CAMPAIGN
The
Campaig
n
The
Client
• The
product
Creatives
• The idea
Planning
• The
customer

9. WHAT DO
ACCOUNT
PLANNERS
DO?

10. WHAT IS REQUIRED
OF A PLANNER
1. Understanding the consumer
2. Understanding industries
3. Unearthing key insights
4. Developing brands: always injecting the brand with
upstream thinking “brands must move forward, or they
die” Jeremy Bulmore – APG meeting 1978

11. PLANNERS TASK LIST
1. Requests data
2. Analyzes data
3. Mines for insights from data
4. Writes creative briefs
5. Drafts brand strategies
6. Drafts communication plans
7. Evaluates campaigns (research)
8. Moderates focus groups
9. Facilitates brainstorming sessions

12. THE VOICE OF THE
CUSTOMER
If researchers are data gatherers, then planners are knowledge
applicators.
Planners must insightfully interpret and illuminate the data and develop
intuitive hypothesis from it.” Mary Baskins
This intuition comes from in-depth knowledge of the following:
The client’s product
The client’s customer
Advertising
Marketing
Brands
Societal Trends

13. PERSONALITY
OF THE
PLANNER

14. ROLE OF PLANNING
The account planner is the researcher with one foot in research
and the other in the agency

15. PERSONALITY
Curious about people and behaviour
Up-to-date with social trends
Avid reader
Good listener
Good speaker
Strategic thinker. Makes multiple connections/thinks in
parallel.
Confident
The NERD of the Agency.

16. WHAT A PLANNER
ISN’T
Client servicing person
Big Ego: Takes credit for creative concepts
Operational: (e.g. events and activations)

17. ITS TIME FOR
PLANNING IN SUDAN
Competition makes planning necessary
Its no longer about producing a fancy ad. Up till recently is
was about expensive ad production that impressed the
consumer, but now we need to touch them at a deeper level.
Once competition gets fierce, then consumers won’t buy
products, they will buy benefits.

18. THANK YOU
WE HOPE PLANNING IS FOR YOU 