/digobrands
@digobrandsAccount Management IS The Agency Business.
Anyone who wants to get anywhere in the agency business ought to start out in account management.
Though “creative director” has been the title I’ve held for the most years of my career, I owe a good deal of my success to having started out as an assistant account executive.
BBDO Direct. 385 Madison Avenue.
Pepto Bismol was the agency beverage of choice. There were as many ulcers as vice presidents. But I didn’t know enough to be scared. That was piece of luck number one.
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A few social media highlights to start your week…
Here is your social media update for the week.
1. Twitter Vines Get Shared 4x More Than Online Video
2. Coke Zero Mother’s Day Twitter Stunt Lets Forgetful Sons Off the Hook
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Don’t limit your growth!
Here are 7 ways agency people can delimit their own growth.
Why aren’t agencies helping their people to grow and develop?
At DiGo, we’ve been learning a lot lately by interviewing account people by the dozens. While we’ve met some spectacular people, I’m sorry to say that most of these interviews have been just shocking. Too many people come in with limiting attitudes about themselves and their possibilities. Experienced account managers typically don’t even have an understanding the agency business. They don’t get what agencies are here to do. They don’t understand the role we play in our client’s lives and businesses. They view themselves as narrow specialists. They are people in boxes, decades too early.
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Growth isn’t work. It’s life.
Here’s a quick dispatch from the intersection of personal, creative and business growth:
Some folks turn off at the phrase “personal growth” because it sounds like a lot of work. “Hey, I’m OK just as I am!”
But growth is as natural as breathing. It’s what we’re meant to do. Only sometimes we block what’s natural for us, and that takes a lot more work and energy.
Like staying in a job for “security” when we know we’re stultified. Like choosing the “safe” campaign rather than the right one. Like picking colleagues or partners who won’t challenge you.
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The Founder CEO, A Marketer’s Orientation.
I love working for and with Founder/CEOs.
No doubt, this makes me an eccentric marketer and an odder ad guy, and casts extreme suspicion on my membership in the creative community.
Marketers are supposed to want to run their own empires – otherwise why spend all that money on a Harvard MBA and all that energy climbing the corporate ladder? Creative directors think the ideal client listens to their presentations, and then applauds. Ad agencies think their job is to please the target audience no matter what the client might think.
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Bigger Isn’t Better: Mad Men Season 6, Episode 6
This week’s Mad Men opens with intoxicating talk of an IPO for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. This brings out the worst in nearly all of them.
When personal greed comes in, client interests are soon forgotten.
An agency focused on cashing out is not an agency focused on client success.
Don inadvertently torpedoes the IPO when he resigns a client. This particular client happens to be a snake and should never have been allowed to slither into the agency in the first place. This is a rare righteous moment for Don.
So, now the agency’s hopes turn to winning a much bigger client. But why?
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Two Tracks, Simultaneously.
Clients shouldn’t have to wait months to see returns from an agency engagement.
We often deliver incremental revenue in the first 30 days. And we don’t sacrifice future success to do it either.
We call it Two-Track Planning.
You’ll find this works in most situations:
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Google Ventures Leads $17 Million Round in On Deck Capital.
A couple months ago, On Deck, the company that uses big data to evaluate whether or not a small business is worth lending money to, landed a healthy $42 million Series D investment of its own. Today, that same round got bigger.
On Deck announced this morning that Google Ventures has led an additional $17 million investment with participation from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and Industry Ventures. Other investors in the round include Institutional Venture Partners, RRE Ventures and First Round Capital.
That round comes on top of a $100 million round of debt financing raised last year from Goldman Sachs and Fortress Credit Corp., and a $15 million Series C led by SAP Ventures in 2011.
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