Job Description

                                                            Marketing Account Director

If you’re like me, then advertisements can make you laugh and make you cry in the blink of an eye. I like telling others about my job as an Account Director in an advertising agency club because many do not know the different parts that go into developing a quality advertisement that can make viewers feel such a range of emotions that lead to them buying the advertised product.

The Account Director at an advertising agency works as the primary point of contact for a client and helps to direct a team, or account, to create a marketing strategy that aligns with the client’s wishes. Most people think that a team of creative people come up with advertisements. However, there are many more people that work on a marketing strategy for a client than meets the eye. Every person on the team works to fulfill different roles for marketing for the client.

There are several roles that the Account Director fulfills:

●      Client relations

●      Creative strategy

●      Idea Presentations

I’ll define what each of these roles entails for my job based on my daily schedule.

Client Relations

In this role, the Account Director works with the client to identify their goals and then acts as driver for the creative team. We carry out the role by doing several things such as:

●      Meeting with or calling the client to keep them updated on the progress of the work

●      Writing memos to the team about what the client wants and how we should address their needs

●      Maintaining communication with past clients to encourage them to return to our advertising agency

The client relations role of the Account Director position is extremely crucial to ensuring that the end product of a project is something that the client wants. If the Account Director does not do these things, the account could potentially waste a lot of time and money creating an advertisement that the client won’t release. For example, let’s say our client is a skincare line that wants to run an ad about their new men’s moisturizer, but we create an ad that only has women in it. The Account Director could have prevented this problem by communicating more with the client about their hope to target men, not women, in the advertisement.

Creative Strategy

In this role, the Account Director works more with the creative team to come up with the ‘big idea’ for the client. I  accomplish this by doing several things:

●      Leading brainstorming sessions with the team

●      Helping to compile data from research analysts about the target market

●      Creating idea boards to get an idea of what an advertisement or campaign for the client would look like visually

This is arguably the most important role of the Account Director, as the creative part of an account is where everyone on the team contributes ideas. It is important that everyone on the account give their ideas in order to create the best product. I liken the creative marketing process to choosing a restaurant to go to dinner to with a group of friends. One person may initially have a preference to go to one restaurant that others in the group do not necessarily like. The dinner will be far more enjoyable for all if everyone contributes their suggestions. Similarly, in our teams at and advertising agency, we recognize that everyone’s opinion is valuable, and it is the Account Director’s job to make everyone feel included.

Idea Presentations

Finally, the Account Director, is also frequently expected to take part in presenting at account meetings to the client where key members of the team and the client have a conference. This means that the Account Director must:

●      Help create presentations to show the client

●      Speak for pitch presentations to the client

●      Answer questions at meetings or know who on the team to direct the client’s questions to

This role is extremely important, especially in the beginning stages of creating a plan. Sometimes the advertising agency will need to pitch their ideas against other advertising agencies before the client begins to work with one agency. Therefore, it is important that there is someone with good presentation skills on the team. I have seen companies turn away teams with really great ideas presented because their presentation skills were so poor. As an Account Director, I have learned to be more enthusiastic and articulate speaker, which potential clients respond positively to. 

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