Arnold Internship: Week 1
I am officially done with week one of my account management internship at Arnold Worldwide. I have been assigned to The Bahamas account and it has been an awesome experience so far.
Prior to starting the internship I tried searching the web to read about other people’s agency internship experiences and didn’t find anything too relevant or useful (with the notable exception of Jonathan Carmona’s blog). Therefore, for the next 9 weeks I will be posting my general impressions of the internship experience to help out others who may be considering going into an agency. I won’t be posting as much about other marketing developments. I will try to link interesting marketing stuff on my Twitter page. I’ve also just added a Twitter widget on the right of the blog for that purpose.
I am in the account management department and I feel that sometimes its hard for people to grasp exactly what account management is all about (I am still wrestling with the concept). A week in, I view account management as the chief organizing force and face of the agency (though project management may in fact do more organizing). Its up to us to interact with clients keep clients happy and make sure everyone knows what they have to do. Oh, and believe it or not there is a lot of paperwork to do. Not very glamorous sometimes, but essential for billing purposes and to keep complicated jobs on track. I am currently reading Ogilvy on Advertising and the following passage is now particularly funny as it captures the essence of account management. Ogilvy details a conversation he overheard on a plane (if this dialogue doesn’t put you off, then account management may be a great fit for you):
What business are you in?
Engineer. You?
I’m an account executive in an ad agency
You write the ads?
No copywriters do that.
That must be a fun job.
It’s not easy. We do a lot of research.
You do the research?
No, we have research people for that.
Do you bring in the new clients?
That’s not my job.
Forgive me, but what is you job?
Marketing.
You do the marketing for the clients?
No, they do it themselves.
Are you in management?
No, but I soon will be.
