Accounting planning : integrated marketing communication

1. Account Planning
Dr. Gopal Thapa
Nepal Commerce Campus

2. Account Planning
 Account planning is a process that involves
conducting research and gathering all relevant
information about a client’s product or service,
brand, and consumers in the target audience.
 Account planning began in Britain during the
1960s and 1970s .
 Account planner’s job is to provide the key
decision makers with all the information they
require to make an intelligent decision.

3. Account Planning
 Accounting planning plays an important role
during creative strategy development by driving
the process from the customers’ point of view.
 Planners will work with the client as well as other
agency personnel, such as the creative team and
media specialists.
 They discuss how the knowledge and information
they have gathered can be used in the development
of creative strategy as well as other aspects of the
ad campaign.

4. Account Planning
 Account planners are responsible for all the
research conducted during creative strategy
development process.
 Only the foolish creative person or team would
approach an assignment without first learning as
much as possible about the client’s product or
service, the target market, the competition, and
any other relevant information background.

5. Inputs to creative process
 Inputs to the creative process: preparation,
incubation, illumination
 Background research
 Product or service research
 Qualitative research input:
 Focus group
 Ethnographic research
 Inputs to the creative process: verification and
revision

6. Advertising Campaigns
 Most ads are part of a series of message that make
up an IMC or advertising campaign.
 Set of interrelated and coordinated marketing
communication activities that center on a single
theme or idea that appears in different media
across a specified time period.
 Determining the unified theme around which the
campaign is built is a crucial part of the creative
process

7. Advertising Campaigns
 A campaign theme should be a strong idea as it is
the central message that will be communicated in
all the advertising and other promotional
activities.
 Advertising campaign plans are short-term in
nature
 However campaign themes are usually developed
with the intention of being used for a longer time
period
 A successful campaign theme may last for years

8. Advertising Campaigns
 A campaign theme should be guided by specific
goals and objectives
 A creative strategy that focuses on what must be
communicated will guide the selection of the
campaign theme and the development of all
message used in the ad campaign.

9. Advertising Campaigns
 The creative strategy is based on several factors :
 Identification of the target audience
 The basic problem
 Issue
 Opportunity in advertising must address
 The major selling idea or
 Key benefit the message needs to communicate and
 Any supportive information that needs to be included in
the ad

10. Advertising Campaigns
 Once these factors are determined, a creative strategy
statement should describe the message appeal and execution
style that will be used
 Many ad agencies outline these elements in a document
known as the copy or creative platform

11. Copy Platform
 Creative platform
 Work plan
 Creative brief
 Creative blue print
 Creative contract

12. Copy Platform Outline
 Basic problem or issue the advertising must
address
 Advertising and communication objectives
 Target audience
 Major selling idea or key benefits to communicate
 Creative strategy statement( campaign theme,
appeal, and execution technique to be used)
 Supporting information and requirements

13. Major Selling Idea
 An important part of creative strategy is
determining the central theme that will become
major selling idea of the ad campaign
 USP : Unique selling proposition
 Rosser Reeves
 Former Chief: Ted Bates Ad Agency