Training Programs Don't Teach Advertising

There are two kinds of training programs prevalent at ad agencies.  There are senior management programs which deal with advanced training, relationships and management issues.   This post deals with the other programs which are intended to deal with molding and shaping young talent.

A mid-level account supervisor called me and asked if she could come over to talk to me.  She wanted twenty minutes of my time to explain something that she was afraid to ask at her agency.  When she came to my office she told me that she was going on her first “shoot” the following week and she had no idea what her role was. 

She is a fabulous account person, well paid for her level and moving ahead quickly. I questioned her at length about her training and why she came to me for this issue.  Among other things she told me was that her immediate supervisor always complained to her about how boring shoots were and how she didn’t like going on them.  My candidate told me that she was told by her management rep/account director that the only job of an account person on a shoot was to baby sit the client.  Her intuition was that there was a greater role. And, of course, she was right.  Then it occurred to me that most people learn by the example of the people they work for. Too bad, because that is how people get into bad habits and the ones who don't have fabulous mentors may top out prematurely.

After my discussion with this account supervisor, I started doing a survey of some of the account people I regularly talk to. I was not surprised at what I discovered. It is not unusual that an account manager should be in the business for eight or ten years and not have gone on a shoot or even supervised print production. Worse, I hear from creative people that account people don't know how to sell or even how to effectively deal with clients.  Training programs have been cut to the bare bones and one thing is for sure, most agencies are not training their people in the essentials of the business. 

No wonder there is enmity between agencies and their clients.

Yes, there are training programs, but they don’t teach advertising or even proper behavior with clients. Many are merely lectures about things like digital, direct, some even show creative, but rarely discuss what makes it effective.. Training programs for account people largely deal with marketing problems, not with advertising. From what I can determine, most training programs are essentially either lectures or case histories – account people are paired with creatives, given a client marketing situation and then are asked to develop a strategy and executions. I am not sure what this really teaches. 

The case history method doesn’t teach about advertising and how to be an effective and successful account or creative person.  Agency people need to be taught how to function in their jobs.  They have to be taught what their jobs are.  They have to be taught the essentials of effective advertising.  And they have to be taught the difference between effective advertising (based largely on test scores) and good advertising.

One of my favorite stories is one that illustrates the issue of training.  It was told to me by a copywriter at a mid-size shop.  An account supervisor gave an assignment for the creation of a coupon FSI for a cereal.  The writer did a simple ”25¢ off….”  The client bought it, but just before production, the account person told the writer that the client wanted to flag the improved taste in the headline.  So it was changed to “25¢ off great new taste…”  Then the account person said the client wished to add that there was a new size.  The writer refused, telling the AS that they were asking the ad to do too much, even for an FSI.  It was one of those issues that blew up out of proportion and ended up in the creative director’s office – every account and creative person has been through this.  When the account person was summoned, the creative director said to her, “Don’t you know that there is too much being asked?  A good ad has only one thought.”  The account person’s response was telling, “How am I supposed to know that?”

This was not an inexperienced account person – she was in her mid-thirties and had been in the business more than ten years.  She didn’t know anything about advertising and what makes an ad communicate and sell. The creative director made a fabulous decision and changed their training program to cover the principles of advertising.  This problem exists today throughout the industry - we are not training our people in advertising.  I don’t think it is any different with creative people than with account people.  I know senior creative directors who have a devil of a time dealing with their writers and art directors who do not understand tonality and brand essence.

I recently heard a story about an account person who, at the end of a creative presentation said to the client, "Is there anything here you didn't like or that made you uncomfortable?"  OMG, that is some way to sell and it certainly showed no understanding of the business.  Imagine an account person saying that in the presentation when Bill Bernbach presented the famous Volkswagen "Lemon?" ad!

This is a problem which the business must solve.