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Advertising account planner: John

This Case Study belongs to Advertising account planner.

John graduated from University College London in 2007 with a first in psychology. He now works for Agency Republic as an accounts planner.

He almost didn’t make it. 'I discovered Republic by trawling through the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) directory of agencies. After looking on their website, I thought I'd just missed out as their graduate applications had closed the week before! But I thought I'd call and send my CV in anyway and I was called back within the hour and invited for an interview.'

The interview process for the agency was demanding. John recalls, 'My first interview was with the planning director and I had to give a five-minute presentation on something I found 'interesting'. That was only round one! I then had another interview with a senior planning director and the MD of the company, which felt very scary. The final round (no pun intended) was a drink with a few of the agency’s planners in the local pub. After two weeks of interviews, I was called and told I had the job.'

Gaining work experience was instrumental in helping John decide what he wanted to do in advertising and in improving his chance of getting his first job in the industry.

'During the summer after my degree I worked at Grey in Cape Town for a week, Bartle, Bogle & Hegarty for a week, and finally at Rainey Kelly Y&R for a month on their summer graduate scheme. Rainey Kelly was the most useful as I got to experiment with all of the roles within agency life - including planning. It was here that I really cemented my desire to be a planner - which, I was told, was crazy as hardly any agencies take planners on just out of uni. But I was determined and determination really pays off.'

John believes that, while you need to have ‘timing and luck’ on your side, you can prepare yourself for when the opportunity comes along. 'Work experience is a must: it shows passion, ambition and motivation and real interest in the industry. These work experience opportunities can be just as hard to get as the real job and places fill up months in advance. I gave up applying to HR and did some detective work to find the planning directors' names and sent them my CV personally. This was much more effective for getting interviews as I think it showed more passion.'

John found that the skills he gained from his degree did transfer into the advertising industry.

'My degree was in psychology and I use so much of it during my day-to-day job role. My degree was centred on research, understanding problems, and analysing different points of view in order to formulate my own. And this is essentially what a planner does. My own interest in human behaviour also transfers very well into planning as we provide the consumer insight. I love the fact that in my job role I still use so much of my degree and can bring a different point of view to the table at meetings and in briefings.'

John's role has developed very quickly, which comes from working in a smaller agency where you are given responsibility earlier. 'Within three months I was writing my own briefs, running brainstorms, briefing creatives and seeing my own ads made. I've now started to work on bigger brand planning and engagement ideas.' Research is also a large part of the role and includes competitor analysis. It is this variety that appeals to John the most.

'I love the fact that no two days are the same. One day I could be working on O2 and another on the BBC. Each brand brings new demographics, new insights and new problems for me to solve. A planner really is like a gold miner - looking for those small nuggets amongst all the rubbish out there. And I love sifting through it all to discover that really cool insight. Planning is the perfect balance between analytical thinking and creativity.'

John's final tips to would-be advertising account planners are: 'Be a real culture vulture - read blogs and the newspapers and be aware of what’s going on around you. And be yourself, each planner is very different and that’s what makes the planning department so unique. It’s full of people with a variety of really cool interests that can be brought together to create something very interesting.'

Case Study sourced by David Shacklady of AGCAS, 15 August 2008.