I enjoy the freedom. There is always a different set of factors turning to light. It's very fast paced. I think the communications business one that is never going to remain stable. It's a volatile business, and 3U always have to stay on top of changes. If two cable businesses came in the scene today, I'd have to know about them. If all of a sudden we find out that TV was going to be totally deregulated, and the FCC was being to allow four-letter words and frontal nudity, then I would have to low. The clients would be climbing the walls! I like the details. I like le fast pace. I like the "hectic." There are a lot of benefits that go with the job. Everyone views advertising as a glamour job. I think it's like joking at an M & M-you get the candy finish on the outside, but inside 3U have the chocolate. Advertising is kind of like that-from the out-de it looks like a lot of glamour, but on the inside it's a lot of hard work. Still there are network and magazine parties. You get to meet a lot E fun people and a lot of different people.
The creative challenge, the feeling of seeing what you've accomplished, seeing the advertisement in print, seeing the literature being used, seeing the article written and used in the magazine-these are all part of the satisfaction. Dealing with people in a creative area is interesting and challenging work. We start with a completely blank piece of paper, an idea, a concept, a thought, and at the end of weeks, or months, depending on the approvals and the preparation of the copy, we see something come out of that creative effort.
Q - What do you dislike about your job?
A - Sometimes, I feel like a glorified babysitter, because I have to look over everything that comes across my desk from other departments with a fine-toothed comb. Sometimes I also feel like a slave to the client. We are asked to do tasks that their brand people should be doing, and when the client says, "Jump," we are not only obliged to jump but to understand.
Last but not least, politics here are the pits. You always have to be aware of and on guard concerning what you are saying to whom, how you are saying it, or else.
In some ways I consider us to be slaves. A lot of times we know n advertising that we are right on target, but the client doesn't like what we've done and doesn't really understand what we are trying to do. S we have to compromise and do what the clients want us to do, but we are not really producing the best product we could. Sometimes they want I be the expert (so, why did they hire us?). That's a typical complaint, bi that's the real world.
Politics. I run into politics a lot within an office. There are clients who do not really want to give me direction; they never actually say what their real objective is or what strategy I should follow to meet that objective. I think that's a hard situation to work in. I'd like a happy medium. I don't want someone to write down twenty objectives and tell me how to accomplish them, so that I just follow them through. There hi to be a little banter back and forth about, "Well, I think you're right, but think we could do it this way better." That kind of thing. I think that basically it-in an agency there is a lot of politics and a lot of egos, people who are very ego-oriented. There are always those who are better than everyone else and who want to boast about what they're doing in comparison to what everyone else is doing. But really, ego is a waste of time. In the long run I have to let my accomplishments speak for themselves.
Q - How much time does a good account executive spend with a client?
A - It varies by type of account, personality of the client, and a lot of other things, but I would say that generally I spend at most 25 percent of my time in front of a client. If I spend more than that, then I don' have time to do what the client is asking.
Q - How much stress is there?
A - It's a high-pressure industry. No doubt about it. But that partly because it's a young industry. Only a few people are over fort except for senior management. The people who you see are very bright and very aggressive-not aggressive in the physical sense, but aggressive in terms of making sure that the right work is done the right way. They are trying to do the best job, because they know it's going to be noticed. All this "boiling in the pot together" tends to make a very competitive but healthy, environment.
Certainly there is a lot of stress. There are crucial deadlines. There are problems in terms of extracting work from your staff groups because you have no direct supervision over them. At the same time you must be able to understand the clients' problems, to push the client at certain times, and to lead them at others. You have to juggle a lot o balls, and that's probably where a lot of pressure comes from. You are required to do so many different things.
