Account Manager's Portfolio

I once read an article that proposed account managers should be required to use a portfolio of work when interviewing. I agree.

Being a young creative in the industry, I see how frusturating it can be to work with an account manager that poorly interprets a clients feedback consistently or simply says yes to everything a client wants. Often the reason for this seems to be that the account manager is judged on how much new business they can get from a client and if they simply do exactly everything the client says they should, hypothetically, be rolling in the dough.

However, if they consistently give the client what they want instead of bringing the agencies expertise to the table to enhance their clients work (involving push back) the work can become stale, sales can plateau and eventually that client will find a different agency they can refresh their brand. The best campaigns out there takes a brilliant creative; but, an even smarter account manager that can sell the work and help the client understand why this move is the best for them.

If an account manager is required to show a portfolio of work they sold through to the client, an agency can quickly see if the account manager is simply a yes man or worth their weight.

Account Managers I want to work with sold these ads through:

Levi’s O’Pioneers///W+K

Nike +/// R\GA

Target’s Sign of the Times///PMH

HBO Vouyer///Big Spaceship

Skittles Pinata///TBWA

Starbust Berries & Cream///TBWA

Sprites Lymon///Crispin + Porter

Creatives Breaking Into the Industry

One of my biggest concerns with the ad industry is the increasing difficulty for young, talented creatives to break in.

I was told by a creative recruiter, that I highly respect and admire, that he feels a college education should be a requirement or a high level consideration. Speaking as one that has an expensive college education from a private design school, I totally disagree with this analysis.

I also believed that one of the best things about the ad industry is some of the best creatives had absolutely no intention of doing advertising in the first place and have no formal education in it. I think it should, as it has for so long, come down to only the work. No matter if the creative spent four years putting his or her book together or a weekend, the only determining factor should be how good their book is.

Yet, no matter what, the monetary and time investment in trying to break into the industry for networking, developing concepts, putting together a book, making revisions, publishing a website, interviewing, following up, etc. is rapidly rising and may hold back some extremely talented creatives in the future.

Traditional Vs. Interactive Agency

Will the traditional or interactive advertising agency win the battle for dominance in the future?

This debate has raged in the ad community for quite some time now and many ardently believe that interactive agencies will reign victorious. The reasoning stems back to a mixture of interactive agencies beginning to win “agency of record” posts mixed with the decline of traditional media consumption. Yet the down side being many interactive shops are relatively small agencies that sometimes can’t handle the sheer amount of work from larger brands and bigger concepts.

On the flip side, the traditional rooted agency has structure on it’s side. It already knows how to create big picture, original creative work in a timely fashion and take on the volume of the big brand. Yet the same structure can often cripple it in response to quick fire needs such as negative publicity on social media feeds such as twitter or blogs.

Ultimately my money is on the idea agencies. At the end of the day it’s great to be able to spread the word across the globe or respond quickly to negative twitter backlash; but, if there is no great creative concept that will cut through the clutter there is no point in getting started in the first place. Today the “idea agencies” tend to be rooted in traditional; yet, interactive shops are rapidly catching up to speed.

New Challenge

Although it’s late for resolutions, I thought I’d pose a challenge to myself. Last time I did that on my blog it nearly got me sued, gave my website over 300 unique hits in a day and landed me a job, so I think its worth a shot.

An Ad A Month. I’m going to produce a new campaign each month (outside of my work) to add to my book.

48 Hour Blog. Post a blog every other day on advertising, design, my work, etc.

Brand It. Redefine my personal branding and website.

Easy enough on paper. It should be interesting to see how this pans out. Check out some resolutions on this nicely designed site.

A Life Lesson

“It doesn’t matter how talented they are, no one wants to work with an asshole.” -Anonymous

I use to believe it was unfair that creatives are judged for their personality when being considered for hiring. I always ardently believed that the only thing that should matter is their ability.

Yet, in the creative world collaboration, more now than ever, is truly key. And the creative community is known for their hefty share of prima donnas.

With the experience I have working in four different agencies and on a number of different creative teams (some that worked and some that didn’t). It has become more apparent that what I had overheard an ad man once say to another MCAD student, “It doesn’t matter how talented they are, no one wants to work with an asshole" is pretty true.

2009 British Television Advertising Awards

There are many avenues for inspiration in advertising; but, the one that seems to trump them all every year is the annual British Television Advertising Awards.

I was fortunate enough to be back at home in Minneapolis over Christmas and got a chance to see a showing of the awards this year at the Walker Art Center. Although the work skewed more towards the serious this year (most likely due to the economic climate) the work was still excellent. I have found also that the few that you remember a week later are the ones that I truly need to learn from.

I think the greatest or worst piece of a creative persons’ character can be seen when faced with obvious greatness in their field. Those that see it as a command to rise and those that denounce and hate it in fear.

Some of my favorites this year:

Barnardo’s/////BBH

PG TIPS/////MOTHER

Sony/////Fallon

Virgin Atlantic/////RKCR/Y&R

Economic Recovery?

Will the signs of revitalization be noticeable as they happen or only in hind sight?

I’ve liked looking at each agency as a mini-cosmos of the gradually improving economy and I think one of the best success stories of the past few months has been Fallon in Minneapolis.

Creative Success with Alice

Creative Success with Fizzy Lizzy

Business Success with winning Chrysler

Not a bad way to end the year or to bring a jolt back to the ad community in Minneapolis.