The Creative Side of Account Management

Anna Fotheringham is managing partner at Above+Beyond (part of independent group The Beyond Collective) and is an accomplished account handler with over ten years of experience.

Anna partners with clients to build the right process and team based on their business goals and budgets, specialising in creating bespoke solutions, built in collaboration. She most recently led the award-winning ‘Change the Ending’ campaign for Alzheimer’s Research UK.

Anna previously spent over eight years at VCCP, starting her career on O2 ,running a variety of integrated campaigns across their marketing calendar, as well as relaunching the brand. For Mondelez, she was the global account lead for Cadbury, working with seven markets to execute Cadbury’s ‘generosity’ strategy, which went on to win the IPA Effectiveness Awards Grand Prix.

LBB> How did you first get involved in account management and what appealed to you about it?

Anna> I did fine art at university and originally thought I might go down the creative route, but when I learned more about different agency roles, account management felt like the perfect fit. Running the end-to-end process, being the point of contact (and knowledge) and the versatility of the role really appealed to me.

It’s a complete myth that you’re not doing creative work if you’re not a creative – the best account handlers are those that can do a bit of everyone else’s job!

LBB> What is it about your personality, skills, and experience that has made account management such a great fit?

Anna> The fact that I’m organised to the point of control freak! But with that needs to be extreme diplomacy and people skills. A charmless account handler won’t go very far; a key part of our job is rallying the troops, keeping motivations high, and pragmatism mixed with passion.

No project ever goes completely to plan, so you must be ready to jump in and problem solve, working with the team to find a way forward.

LBB> What piece of advice would you give to someone just starting their career in account management?

Anna> Go out of your way to learn about marketing theory (e.g. ‘The Long and the Short of It’ by Byron Sharp, Effies case studies, and IPA foundation courses) so you TRULY understand why we’re doing what we’re doing.

When you first start your career, it can feel very action-orientated and reactive. You should push to understand the business context behind the briefs you’re working on and how you’re responding based on them. This will give you an incredible foundation to have productive conversations with clients and creatives, underpinned by getting to the most effective solution (which always goes down well!).

LBB> Thinking back to some of your most challenging experiences you’ve had in your career, what do you think tends to lie at the heart of the more tense or difficult client-agency relationships?

Anna> Respect is by far the biggest factor in the best client-agency relationships. I’ve seen a big shift in this over the last decade, which goes for both sides. When things go awry, it’s usually because respect hasn’t been there, whether that’s respect for the scope, process, each other’s time, opinions, or even situations.

Clients and agencies should behave in the same way to each other as they do to their colleagues, operating as one team to get to the most effective work.

LBB> And what are the keys to building a productive and healthy relationship?

Anna> Honesty, delivered in the right way is critical. Sometimes it’s as simple as candid upfront conversations on what we’re trying to achieve, ambition, and practical parameters (which sometimes need to be done on the side to get the real answers!). I’ve seen this slip so many times, resulting in a huge impact on both the process and relationship.

Equally, valuing each other’s skill set is critical. The ‘not made here’ attitude is seriously old school, dated, and (being frank), pretty arrogant. Combining the expertise of clients and agencies is when we’ll get to the best answers, provided both parties respect each other’s specialisms.

LBB> What’s your view on disagreement and emotion - is there a place for it and if not, why not? If so, why - and what does productive disagreement look like?

Anna> Yes and yes! We get to the best work by constructively challenging each other – that’s both internally and between clients and their agencies.

Clients come to agencies to bring them a point of view and recommendation, grounded in objectivity and with the aim of creating the most effective communications. Both sides wouldn’t be doing their jobs if they didn’t challenge when they felt something could deter from this. It all comes down to the delivery of the disagreement. A disagreement can be a calm and productive conversation; a difference of opinion doesn’t need to equal heated arguments.

That being said, emotion is inevitable; it’s a sign of caring about your job. It just needs to show up in the right way.

LBB> Historically, account management has been characterised as the mediator in an adversarial client and creative relationship - what do you make of that characterisation? Is there any nugget of truth in that or is it wildly inaccurate?

Anna> This is wildly inaccurate. The best account people are truly immersed in their client’s needs and business, and likewise, how communications can make a difference. We’re therefore in a unique position in an agency.

One in which you have exposure to different perspectives and have empathy from both sides, so can help shape the approach in the best way for the brief and needs. That being said, I’m a big fan of direct conversations between clients and creatives. Nothing should be sugar coated and (providing everyone behaves in a respectful way to each other), there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have a conversation as one united team.

LBB> These days, agencies do so much beyond traditional campaigns, and as account management, you’re pulling together creative, experience, data, e-commerce, social and more - and that complexity can often be mirrored on the client stakeholder side too? What’s the key to navigating (and helping the client navigate) that complexity?

Anna> The more we can unify disciplines and take away silos, the better.

At The Beyond Collective, we thrive on ‘collectivism’; working with our collective agencies (covering media, creative, strategic change consultancy, and production) to streamline the process both for ourselves and for our clients.

It’s crazy how big a difference it makes just being together under one roof – never underestimate the power of a quick kitchen chat in getting to solutions faster. The more clients can partner like-minded agencies together or go to agencies who already operate in this way, the better.

LBB> What recent projects are you proudest of and why? What was challenging about these projects from an account management perspective and how did you address those challenges? What was so satisfying about working on these projects?

Anna> I’m really proud of working with the amazing team at Alzheimer’s Research UK. We launched the brand platform ‘For A Cure’ together two years ago and have already seen some brilliant results. It’s such an amazing cause and if I even played a tiny part in helping them achieve their long-term mission, I’ll be thrilled.

The brand platform and world are super strong, clearly pulling them apart from some of the other dementia charities. The launch campaign (featuring Olivia Colman) was a huge moment. It was many moons in the making and given the passion from both sides, there were a few (productive!) debates along the way.

Problem solving and action planning together, knowing we were all on the same team and looking for the same result, only strengthened the relationship.