The benefits of an agency having a horizontal account structure
By Linda Forrest
This week has been a perfect case in point for why inmedia has a horizontal rather than a vertical account structure. What I mean by that is that our agency, unlike a lot of agencies, puts at least two senior consultants on each account. It is these consultants, with support from the balance of the team, that do all – and I mean all – of the work on a client account, from initial briefings with the client to developing the media list, to writing the materials, to pitching the story to the media and so on. That way, if one of the consultants is unavailable or out of town on business as is the case this week, the remaining consultants can capably manage any and all requirements for that client because they’ve been involved from the outset and have the same knowledge about the client as the other consultant.
In agencies that employ a vertical account structure, the most junior of consultants with the least experience is typically tasked with outreach to the media, having had little to no involvement in the procuring of the client, the learning of their story or development of the materials. If a journalist has a question that requires additional knowledge beyond the news release that the consultant has been handed to pitch, well, let’s just say that it’s this lack of full understanding of clients and their stories that has given our industry such a bad reputation.
This has been a busy week, with a number of our consultants doing international travel, new clients coming into the fold, big projects with upcoming deadlines in production and preparations to be made for several major campaigns getting underway next week. Still, despite being far flung across time zones and countries, the team has been able to keep all of the proper plates spinning because of our account schema. This provides both our clients and consultants with peace of mind, knowing that the needs of clients are not superseded by out of office requirements and that work continues seamlessly on their behalf.
That said, it’ll be nice to have the Ottawa team assembled once again when two of our consultants return from overseas, to hear of their most recent adventures and determine whether any of them picked up a detectable brogue on their travels.
