Opinion

Account people, bag carriers? No. We’re creative entrepreneurs

In this guest post, Chris Kay suggests that this week’s opinion piece on the death of the account handler underestimated the value of a great suit.

Watching Campbell in the latest season of Mad Men, it’s pretty clear that although comical and at times charming and annoying in equal measure, that this archaic view of the ‘suit’ underplays the growth in importance of the role. Being a bill-payer, a coffee-pourer, a timekeeper, or a bag carrier, is a lazy perspective on the immense value of a great ‘suit’.

Seeing this role, as our HBO cousins do, as an administrational one whose only potential value is to pour the gin and to organise – and I use this term in its loosest fashion ‘the entertainment’ – on a night out, really underplays the role a great account person has in driving the ideas and ultimately the business of an agency forward.

The ability to spot an opportunity where no-one else can, to build the nub of a thought into a fully grown idea, the drive to lead a team from good to great, and the nous to make the most of all revenue opportunities, are the characteristics of a hard working ‘creative entrepreneur’. This seems like a better summation of what is needed from the modern account man.

It’s this expertise alongside their more strategic and creative partners that an account man brings to the agency holy-trinity – or the less grand sounding ‘project team’ as we call it at BMF. Although I would argue – and clearly being one myself – that it’s the account person or aptly titled ‘creative entrepreneur’ who drives this core project team with their creative and planning brethren to make the type of work that is admired the world over.

Before we get carried away though let’s be clear. This is not a clarion call for a change in title to make ‘account people’ feel better about themselves. That would just be a little weird. Nor is this a moan about the standing of account people within the industry. This is really just a clarification on what other departments and clients should be expecting from their ‘suit’ on a daily basis while putting something out there to recognise those talented creative entrepreneurs that get this, deliver this and are this, on a daily basis.

Stepping outside of agency life while being a client for a couple of years at Manchester City Football Club, it’s this type of partner that I wanted on my business. For those in the know you could say I wanted my own Carlos Tevez. Someone who rolled their sleeves up, got stuck in, had flashes of inspiration and brilliance, and was the leader of a winning (okay just the FA cup) team.

Now I am back in the industry, it’s even clearer that great agencies get it. And it’s abundantly clear from the work these great agencies produce – the Wieden + Kennedys, the Sid Lees and the Anomalys of this world – that the rise of ‘creative entrepreneurs’, are what would be driving the modern day Sterling Cooper Draper Price versus the Canadian club drinking Campbell.

Chris Kay is the head of account management at BMF

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