Graduate Students Visit Ad Agencies in Dallas

The students of Professor Burns' Advanced Account Planning class got a first hand look at the real-world work life of some of the best Account Planners in Texas. The class took the day and went to Dallas to see the wide variety of agencies in terms of culture, work environment, and work with The Richards Group, Firehouse, and TracyLocke. The students were able to compare and contrast each of the agencies in efforts to find out for themselves what they want in an agency and how success has been achieved by these companies.

Olga Kazakova concentrated on learning how The Richards Group delivers results through their planning department and how it could be applied to her success as a planner. "We talked about the Richards Group branding approach - spherical Branding. Spherical branding is how the Richards Group defines a brand and it is a strategic foundation. There is a strong focus on implementation but if it's not considered important by all key players, it won't succeed."

  Amanda Guerra, one of the students on the trip, learned many new things about Firehouse that she had not known before the visit and how it similar to, yet different from, The Richards Group. "Firehouse was a much smaller agency, very intimate and dealt with smaller clients than the Richards Group - however, they had almost the same exact view points on branding and what makes a great brand: Conviction, consistency, and connection."

Sherri Wilson enjoyed the experience of visiting TracyLocke since they "had packets from the AP conference, articles, and very useful advice on what to ask during a job interview. They also had an interesting creative floor, it was covered in Simpsons, bean bags, cork walls, and chalk boards." The students took away different strengths and advice from each agency visit.

One of the greatest aspects of this visit was to see how account planning functions within the agency. "The consumer insights on those accounts are so powerful because they are so simple.  There's no fuzziness about who they are targeting or why, it's just a straight shot every time" says Meaghan Danielson. Account planning is a rather new field within advertising and is hasn't been completely established to the point where there is a uniform operation for the department. The visit allowed students to find answers to their concerns about the field of account planning rather than what the agency's general processes are, which is typically covered with a general informational agency visit.

Overall, the students, comprised of all second year advertising graduate students, relished the opportunity to see how the account planning department works specifically and how it interacts with the agency as a whole. Since all the students graduate in May, the trip was invaluable in understanding how they would work as an account planner and providing information on how to have more successful interviews for planning positions.