Why account managers shouldn’t just do as they’re told

Many years back – goodness me, it was almost in the last century – I was a Senior Account Director at a long-gone London integrated advertising agency. For my sins, I was put in charge of annual graduate account management recruitment. Each year a new crop of prospective Frank Lowes* would turn up for our …

A refocus on brand as a long-term sales driver

In recent times, CMOs (under pressure from their CFOs and CEOs) have increasingly – wrongly – shifted focus and budget away from long-term brand building, and towards short term growth through sales activation.  In part this is because the impact of sales activation is easier to measure (e.g. PPC rates), increasing pressure for MQL volumes …