Can a humanistic, Old World process bring new success and vitality to the hustle-bustle of American newspaper advertising sales?

 As a former newspaper advertising manager, that question immediately jumped to my mind when I was first introduced to account planning ? the hottest marketing concept to cross the Atlantic since shaggy-haired rock stars.

 This advertising technique pioneered by British advertising agencies had special interest to me, as it seemed very similar to the ãbusiness coachä technique on which I and others were working at Dallas-Fort Worth Suburban Newspapers a few years ago.  The premise of both ad agency account planning and our newspaper business coach technique is that advertising professionals can become much more effective by taking a consultative, pro-consumer approach to their work.  Advertising agencies have already achieved stunning success with this approach (Maxwell & Wanta, 1998).

 With modification, the technique can similarly bring greater success to newspapers.  By becoming ãbusiness coachesä who have thoroughly researched the customer base of the merchant-client, newspaper ad reps can not only produce more effective and socially worthwhile ads, but help their clients succeed as businesses.

 In account planning  (as developed in the United Kingdom) a specialist on the advertising agencyâs account team conducts thorough research on the customer base of the advertising client, reviews the business goals of the client and assures that the resulting marketing plans meet the needs of the ultimate customer.

Although account planners work for the advertising agency, they take the role of advocate for the clientâs own customers, and help coach the client to meet the needs of those customers. Research shows the ads are thus more effective for both the agencyâs client and the end customer (Marshall, 1995).

 In contrast, current approaches by newspaper advertising sales representative limited to meeting the client, selling the space and often designing and producing the ad.  The pace of the work is fast and often focuses on the design and scheduling only only a current ad.  Research time is often necessarily minimal and the focus of the sales rep is usually on the merchantâs own concept of what ad content will work.

 Why is the method in which a corporate representative sells her or his product important to communications researchers or newspaper publishers?
 On its face, the choice between two competing sales approaches is a persuasive communications question, an area of great interest to researchers.  It  involves basic investigation of the intricate paths of communication and effectiveness of message delivery.

 Of greater interest to media managers, however, is the strong argument that the effectiveness of advertising sales is crucial to the continued existence of western-style free press.  As Frederickson said,  ãGlobally, our vision for newspapers is based on the principle that ãnewspapersä ? or whatever multi-media companies we evolve into ? cannot stand for truth, integrity and press freedom if we are financially bankruptä (Frederickson, 1997).

 Additionally, there is growing evidence that the role of advertising in society is changing ? and good business sense insists that the role of advertising professionals must change with it.  Barnard and Ehrenberg (1997) found evidence that advertising no longer persuades consumers to be highly committed or loyal to a particular brand, but that well-thought-out ad campaigns can ãnudgeä consumers toward a purchase .   An increased use of qualitative methodology in advertising research (Watkinson, 1998) and postmodernist analysis of the relationship between customer and supplier (Firat, Dholakia, & Venkatesh, 1995) have also spawned a call for a ãkinder, gentlerä advertising sales technique.

Review of the literature:

 Because aspects of this paper span communications, psychology, sociology, marketing and management, the range of applicable literature is enormous and beyond condensing into a single paper.  However, a number of writers have contributed insights that are particularly useful.

 Research on the sales process has focused largely on the motivation and the personal or emotional factors that keep sales representatives ãupä (Brown, Cron, & Jr, 1997).  But some sales trainers, notably national speaker Tom Hopkins, have advocated that sales managers concentrate on persuasion skills as much or more than on sales force motivation. In his introduction of salesmanship to novices, Hopkins relates the skills that are used to market products to other persuasive skills more easily recognized by the public:

 ãSelling skills can do for you what a way with words did for Cyrano de Bergerac and William Shakespeare.  They can do for you what sex appeal did for Marilyn Monroe.  They can do for you what powerful communications skills did for historical greats like Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dr. Martin Luther Kingä (Hopkins, 1995, P. 12)

   If selling is persuasion, then sales success logically depends on understanding how persuasion works.  Haley and Baldinger (Haley & Baldinger, 1991), tested a number of factors that contributed to successful advertising persuasion and concluded that ãlikabilityä of the message was a major factor.

 But in a replication of that study,  Hollis (1995) found that likability was not enough and that ãinvolvementä was also critical to advertising success.  Firat (1995) looked at consumer persuasion from the postmodern perspective, asserting that marketers must mitigate the external cultural and social forces on consumers and satisfy their basic needs to be effective.  Consistency of persuasion strategy was the key to advertising success asserted by Rosenberg and Blair (1994).  They also cast a shadow of doubt on the efficacy of rational claims and ãnew news.ä

 As stated before, Barnard and Ehrenburg (1997) theorized that advertising is not strongly persuasive at all, but instead just ãnudgesä consumers toward a brand.  At that, they claim consumers can only be nudged into adopting a particular label into their repertoire of familiar and habitual brands.
 The obvious implication in this observation is a strong need for both the advertiser and the advertising professional to have a firm grasp of what other brands are in that consumerâs repertoire and what attracts the consumer to those brands.

 Finding that information can take special training and skills, as it requires that attention be turned not to the persuader, but towards the beliefs and knowledge of the audience, or ãtarget.ä

 In this light, Friestad and Wright (1994) proposed that both an individualâs ãpersuasion beliefsä and the cultureâs folk knowledge center around what people believe about internal events (such as attention, emotion, remembering and trust).  These in turn mediate how the persuasion agentâs attempts (such as an ad campaign) influence the targetâs behavior (the consumerâs buying decisions).

 Friestad and Wright used this theory to formulate the Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM), which itself constitutes a structural theory on how persuasion takes place.   The PKM says that persuasion is dependent upon three factors:  Topic knowledge, persuasion knowledge and agent knowledge.  These three factors are present in varying degrees of intensity in both the persuader (the ãagentä) and the person to be persuaded (the ãtargetä)
 PKM insists a delicate balance of intensity of these three factor in the agent and target must occur before persuasion takes place.

 Advertising sales and most product sales have focused on the middle factor:  persuasion knowledge (see, for example, Hopkins, 1995 or Folio (1996)).  The standard newspaper advertising sales dictum was repeated by Don Stinson, vice president of advertising for the Gannett Co., in his companyâs newsletter:

    ãThere are three secrets to advertising-sales success:

   ð One, make sales calls.
   ð Two, make more sales calls.
   ð Three, make many more sales calls.
    Pretty simple. The more sales calls newspaper advertising sales representatives make, the more sales they should closeä (Stinson, 1997).

 Although account planning has been a fact of life for advertising agencies in the United Kingdom for 30 years, it has only recently been embraced by American agencies.  Chiat-Day installed account planners in 1980, but growth in the number of American planners at work was slow (Maxwell, Bentley, & Wanta, 1998).

 The heart of the account planning movement returns to the most basic recommendation Theodore Levitt made to all industries to avoid his dreaded ãmarketing myopia:ä

    ãManagement must think of itself not as producing products but as providing customer-creating value satisfaction.  It must push this idea (and everything it means and requires) into every nook and cranny of the organizationä (Levitt, 1960).

An organizational comparison

 A traditionally organizationed advertising agency has an account manager who ãsellsä the agencyâs services to the account (say, a car maker).  The account manager is the person who works directly with the account during and after the ad campaign, but he or she is part of a larger team that includes creative artists, copy writers, media buyers and sometimes researchers.  Together, they craft a campaign for the account.

 In the account planning model, the hypothetical car maker works with two people from the agency:  the account manager and the account planner.  While the account manager works to keep the ãcustomerä (the car maker) happy, the account planner works to keep the customerâs customers (the car buyers) happy.   She or he is an expert on consumer research, consumer behavior, social psychology, business strategy and popular trends.   The account planner represents the interests of the consumer in the advertising process, ensuring that the merchant or manufacturer is offering the consumer something he or she really wants and is not perceived by the account as a mere money-grubbing capitalist (Steel, 1998).

 In the traditional newspaper advertising sales department, an account representative is the primary and often only contact point between the advertiser and the newspaper.   The ad rep meets with the merchant, explains the costs and benefits of advertising, ãclosesä the advertising agreement, solicits information for the advertising content, designs the ad and processes both production and billing paperwork.

 Depending upon the size of the newspaper, the sales representative may also have support from a limited number of technicians:  graphic artists, photographers, accounting clerks and ad-proof couriers.

 Often missing in this ãteam,ä however, is a business research element.  The need for such specialized research was one impetus for the account planning movement in advertising agencies.

Making it work at newspapers

 While newspapers seldom can afford a dedicated account planner, newspaper ad reps can use consumer-oriented techniques to improve their ad lineage and their customersâ business by becoming trusted business coaches for their accounts.  The newspaper ad rep has unique qualifications for this:
 

 ð Training ? Ad reps are in the sales business and know what makes people buy.  The techniques ad reps learn to close a sale are very similar to the techniques a merchant must employ to sell his or her services and wares.
 ðäBigä view ? Unlike most vendors, community newspaper ad reps see a very wide variety of businesses and have immediate access to trends in a community.  They see the big picture.  The newspaper ad rep can play a ãhoney beeä role in the community, pollinating the business sector with good ideas. They likely  see not only a merchantâs competitor but also see merchants with dissimilar products but similar challenges.  Also, because of their ready access to information, they can become walking experts on the latest consumer fads, buying trends and community concerns with only minimal extra effort.
 ð Frequency  ? Few other vendors see merchants on a weekly or more than weekly basis, as ad reps do.  Newspaper ad reps have the opportunity to build a trusting relationship with them.
 ðHistory ? The ad rep knows the merchantâs business and its background.  The rep usually knows (or can check the files to find out) what type of marketing was successful and what was unsuccessful for not just that particular account, but for other similar businesses.

 In a consultative or business coaching relationship, the main emphasis of the advertising sales representative (also called an account executive) is to make the accountâs business successful.  This may mean foregoing a current ad sale in order to save money for a more appropriate promotion.

 This approach shares many attributes with the account planning model of agency advertising.  It requires the newspaper advertising representative to become an expert on the operation of the customerâs business.  This in turn requires research ability and a knowledge of business trends.  Most importantly, the ad rep must accurately identify the retail or service consumer that the account is best positioned to serve, then must know how to appeal to that consumer.

 The academic assumption of this approach is that the use of an account planning or business coach technique dramatically enhances the ãtopic knowledgeä and ãagent knowledgeä factors of persuasion for either an advertising agency or a newspaper ad rep.  This, following the logic of the Persuasion Knowledge Model, makes the newspaper or agency more attractive to the client, while also enhancing the same two factors in the clientâs persuasive message to the consumer (Friestad & Wright, 1994).

 In a more practical sense, the double stimulus of an enhanced advertising vehicle (the agency or the newspaper) and and enhanced persuasive message (a better targeted ad) should, logically, appeal to the intellect of the consumer and make the resulting campaign more effective.  As the great ad guru David Ogilvey pointed out years ago, after all,  ãThe consumer isnât a moron.  Sheâs your wifeä (Ogilvy, 1963).

Account Planning - A History

 A brief history of account planning demonstrates how and why it differs from the more traditional ãpushä approach used by newspapers .

 The late Stanley Politt is credited with inventing the initial account planning concept in 1965 (APG-SF, 1997).  He said that, as more data was becoming available to British ad agencies in the blossoming Information Age, it was being used either incompetently or expediently by account managers.  He saw the traditional advertising researcher as a back room guru uninvolved in major decisions. The battery of quantitative techniques that were used actually got in the way of producing better and more effective ads, he claimed (Watkinson, 1998).

 Politt suggested agencies install specially trained researchers as equal partners with account managers.

 At the same time, Steven King at J. Walter Thompson was writing that clients of ãhit or missä ad agencies deserved a better way of doing things.  He called for a process of developing ads with less ãgut feelä and more scientific method. (APG-SF, 1997).

 Politt introduced his concept of account planners at the Boasse Massimi Politt (BMP) agency in 1968, the same year the J. Walter Thompson (JWT) agency set up an account planning department.  The two agencies, BMP and JWT, have remained leaders of the account planning movement and define the two major traditions of the practice.  The BMP method focuses the role of the professional account planner as an advocate for the consumer.  The JWT tradition tries to better serve clients through a rigorous advertising process called account planning.

 Account planning was an operational improvement. Instead of just number crunching, a human aspect was introduced. This was achieved by using the tools of market research (asking people questions), and pursuing issues that would lead to a better understanding between the consumer and the brand (Watkinson, 1998).

 Although account planning has flourished in the U.K., it has only slowly caught on in the United States.  Robb White, director of account planning at Fallon McElligot in Minneapolis, blames some of that slow assimilation on misinformation circulating within the industry.  Trade press reports said agencies merely renamed their researchers ãplanners.ä (White, 1997).

 However, White said, agencies are now learning that true account planners are a different breed, and work hand-in-hand with the account executive to develop an advertising strategy.  Perhaps as a result, agencies employing account planners in the U.S. are finding signficant success.  A national survey of advertising executives, comparing agencies that employed account planners with agencies that did not, showed that agencies with account planners reported greater growth in both gross billings and number of client accounts than agencies without account planners.  In addition, agencies employing account planners also reported winning more awards than other agencies (Maxwell et al., 1998).

 Jane Newman, a partner in Merkley Newman Harty in New York, theorized that a basic shift in organization may be at work here.  She noted that advertising researchers have held advisory roles in agencies, available on-call to the account managers and creative staff.

 ãUnlike traditional research, which is a staff function, account planning is a line function.  It has a line responsibility to insure the advertising is relevant and motivating to the consumer and ultimately is accountable for its effectivenessä (Newman, 1998).

 The account planner, then, becomes an expert on the business of the clientâs business.

 This is a role that the newspaper advertising representative can also take, if minor changes are made in the ãmindsetä of the ad rep.  It requires the ad rep to reorder the ãgive and takeä sequence of a sales call.

 Traditionally, as sales people we supply information and solicit orders. Under the coaching model, we solicit information and inspire ideas.
 The common work methods of newspaper advertising sales representatives position them well to use a business coaching or account planning method.  Indeed, the ad rep and her or his merchandising client share many of the employee/manager factors that management experts say lead to a good ãcoachingä relationship:

 ð Both parties gain if both succeed in the job.
 ð Both have their livelihoods on the line if they fail.
 ð Both have to be concerned about the efficient use of resources.
 ð Both have to take risks in order to survive and prosper in challenging environments (Stowell, 1988).

 While some local retailers are well trained and well equipped to analyze the needs of their customers, the stereotypical small retailer is over-worked, stressed for time and short on resources.  While some may get retail advice from their franchiser or home office, independents have no access to this.  A chamber of commerce or merchantsâ group can also provide a forum for idea exchange, but in small communities or neighborhoods this poses competitive challenges.

 I maintain that one of the primary sources of business advice and intelligence for small businesses is the corps of vendors that serves those businesses, and most particularly, their newspaper advertising representatives.

Steps to Success

 As an advertising manager in Irving, Texas, I identified six action steps in effective business coaching for newspaper advertising representatives (Bentley, 1993):

 1.  Research the merchantâs type of business so you can accurately describe it and the challenges the merchant faces.  Use examples and focus on their customers.
 2.  Seek the advertiser's opinion.  This encourages the customer to analyze the challenge themselves.
 3.  Ask the customer to identify specific ways they might address the challenge.  You may find a shortcut -- if they come up with the same idea you were going to propose, you have closed on the solution -- and the sale.
 4.  Give them feedback on their ideas, and only then add your own ideas.
 5.  Summarize the actions to be taken and close for a specific date.
 6.  Express your confidence and support.  Show confidence in the ability of your mutual plan to address the challenge and a willingness to modify it if necessary, but give them credit for the idea.

 1.  Illustrate the newspaperâs value.
 2.  Explain what the newspaper can do for the advertiser.
 3.  Suggest why the advertiser should start running ads now  (Stinson, 1997).

 ãA planner is essentially the account teamâs primary contact with the outside world; the person who, through personal background, knowledge of all pertinent  information and overall experience, is  able to bring a strong consumer focus to all advertising decisionsä (White, 1997).

 ãIn relation to advertising, consumers are not learning machines - despite what some hard-sell advertisers might think. Consumers have come a long way since Rosser Reeves' Îunique selling propositionâä (Watkinson, 1998).

 ãAccount planning aids the development of effective advertising - i.e. communication that is relevant and distinctive. It must be given every
opportunity to work and this means its early involvement in a new project to help identify the key motivations that exist and drive the market. This is especially true in a market crammed with parity products and a lot of
compelling emotional decisions that would motivate consumers to choose one over the otherä (Watkinson, 1998 P.2).

Tailoring the process

 A key to converting the successful account planning concept of agencies into an equally successful ãbusiness coachä model for newspapers is to recognize the differences between the two types of organizations, but at the same time capitalize on the similarities.

 From Pollittâs early writings to contemporary essays on account planning, advocates extol the value of account planners as individual but ãextraä members of the advertising agency team.   Newspapers, however, seldom use integrated sales teams.  Instead, they assign single sales representatives to a roster  of advertisers with whom they will work one-on-one ? the so-called  ãaccount listä organizational style.

 Both styles work well for the different cultures of agencies and newspapers.   Agencies invest a great deal of effort in a relatively small number of clients and their ads.  The use of a large team allows them to emphasize creativity and quality.  Newspaper sales reps, on the other hand, process the ads of a great many clients in a short period of time.  The use of single ad reps allows newspapers to be ãnimbleä and keep costs low through high volume.

 Nevertheless, the very nature of a low-cost, streamlined organization requires it to be ever vigilant for more effective procedures.  Therefore, if a variation on account planning can be adapted to the newspaper environment in a way that both benefits the client and the newspaper, it represents significant improvement in the business culture.

The Coaching Solution

 In our sports-obsessed society the concept of a ãcoachä is almost universally understood, even if it is often poorly represented as a gravel-voiced, harsh taskmaster.

 While selling newspaper advertising is much more than a sport, many of the same techniques that football coaches, voice coaches, writing coaches and coaches of every persuasion use can be adapted to make the customers of newspapers ? and therefore the newspapers themselves -- successful.  This is the same strategy that account planners use in advertising agencies.

 The term "coach" has an academic root.  English school boys called a learning gimmick  a "pony" (to ride through the problem).  If a boy really needed help, he got a "coach" to go with his "pony." British rowing crews of 1880s schools used the term for the person who ran along the bank and shouted at the crew with a megaphone, telling them to go faster, change course, etc.  Americans latched on to that term and by 1890 applied it to all athletic tutors.

 Coaching has more to do with offering advice than formal instruction.  A good coach listens, displays leadership, shows respect, has a great deal of technical skill and is inspirational.

 Chip Bell,  in Coaching for High Performance, defined seven skills for good coaches of any ilk:

 1.  Good coaches know their plays and players well, and know how to match them.
 2.  They make the plays known and clear to the players.
 3.  They know what players expect as a reward for good performance.
 4.  They know that players perform best when it is assumed they will perform best.
 5.  They use sensitivity and timing when advising a player in a slump.
 6.  They employ complex emotional support when a player does not try to succeed, or tries to fail.
 7.  They know that when a player fails for no apparent reason, it could be caused by such things as the wrong match between play, player or team; or by a conflict of priorities and expectations between coach and player (Bell, 1987).

When is coaching inappropriate?

 Although the account planning/business coaching method is usually effective, there are at least two sitituations in which it is inappropriate in a newspaper environment. First among these is when the ad rep is unsure of the goals of coaching, so cannot decide what role he or she can play in building the clientâs business.

 The second, perhaps more common, situation is when a client already has a clear idea of what advertising she or he seeks, and and has limited time to work with the ad rep.  This is often the scenario found in a ãcall-in,ä or when an agency has already been involved.  The ad rep must always remember that the coaching technique is an offer of help, not a required condition of placing advertisement.

 The transition from traditional ad rep to business coach is actually quite easy.  It is more a matter of recognizing the importance of a handful of concepts than of learning a repertoire of new skills.

 Primary in that list of concepts is honesty.  The coaching process depends on mutual trust and open communication.  The rep must establish credibility with the client before she or he can honestly critique the business.

 Patience (and its associated concept of time management) is also important.  Coaching takes time and repetition. One of the most effective techniques a coach can use is the "Jiminy Cricket" effect.  Every time the rep sees an advertiser, he or she should ask the same key question about the business (Is this what your customers want?  How can you make your product attractive?  Do your customers have fun in your store?  How do you define quality?)  In time, the account hears "Jiminy's voice" in his ear whenever the subject comes up.

 Also critically important are knowledge of the market and knowledge of the client.  The rep simply must make an effort to read the business columns, take notes on what other customers are saying and to exchange information with other reps.  At the same time, updating advertiser profiles is important, and the rep should expand them with notes on the advertiser's aspirations and motivations.

Success by the numbers

 Here is a brief run-down of a coaching session, using the six key points described earlier.

 1.  Describe the area of business and why it is important.

a.  Remember that the merchant may not realize a challenge exists.  Use examples and focus on his or her customers.
b.  Be succinct and to the point.  By focusing on one area of business, you put the advertiser's challenges into manageable "chunks"

 2.  Seek the advertiser's opinion.  This encourages the customer to analyze the challenge themselves.   When they realize the challenge, it takes on importance.  Use open-ended questions.

3.  Ask the customer to identify specific ways they might address the challenge.

a.  By letting them have the responsibility to find solutions before you jump in with your own ideas, you show respect for their knowledge and business skills.
b.  You may find a shortcut -- If they come up with the same idea you were going to propose, you have closed on the solution -- and the sale.
c.  Build on their general idea of how they are doing, then draw out specifics by echoing back their answers and prompting for details.

4.  Give them feedback on their ideas, then add your own.

a.  Reviewing their ideas demonstrates that you are listening, and gives credibility to your expertise.
b.  Questions work well here.  "Does that ...?  If you did this, what would happen?   Questions are non-threatening, but effective, as the TV detective ãColumboä demonstrates.
c.  Have spec ads, testimonials and a plan of action ready.

 5.  Summarize the actions to be taken and close for a specific action date

 6.  Express your confidence and support

a.  Show confidence in the ability of your mutual plan to address the challenge, but give them credit for the idea.
b.  Follow up with a phone call or card.

 For information about the business coaching process, contact:

 Clyde H. Bentley
 211B Allen Hall
 School of Journalism and Communication
 1275 University of Oregon
 Eugene, Oregon 97403
 cbentley@darkwing.uoregon.edu
 

---

Account:                                                                                                                                             Date of plan:

ð  What is the coaching opportunity I have with this account?
 

ð  Why is it important?
 

ð  How can I use this opportunity to develop the account's potential?
 
 

ð  How can I tie this coaching opportunity to the account's interest or aspirations?
 
 

ð  From my experience with this account, what potential challenges will I need to overcome to make this coaching effort successful?
 
 
 

ð  How will I overcome those challenges?
 
 
 

ð  From my experience with this account, what personal challenges will the account have to overcome in order to take advantage of my coaching?
 
 
 

ð  How can my account overcome these challenges?
 

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