Account Manager - Creative Agency

Location: London (3 days based in our office on Exmouth Market & 2 days remote)

Duration: Permanent

Department: Account Management

Salary: Competitive

ABOUT LUCKY GENERALS

Lucky Generals is a creative advertising agency with a passion for bold, innovative ideas. Since we started, we’ve grown to 80+ people split between London (70+) and New York. It’s a perfect size: big enough to tackle the most challenging briefs on the planet, but small enough for everyone to know each other’s name.

What hasn’t changed is our ambition to be “A creative company for people on a mission” – a statement with three distinct parts:

A creative company: While advertising is our forte, we excel at solving problems with a broader definition of creativity.

For people: Everything we do is rooted in human insight, focusing on real people with real needs and desires.

On a mission: We aim to drive meaningful change, inspiring action and delivering work that truly makes a difference.

WHO WE’RE LOOKING FOR

In a nutshell, we’re looking for someone accountable, organised, proactive and hungry to add value creatively and strategically: a great Account Manager owns the day to day machine at Lucky Generals. Smart, efficient, composed and resourceful, you’ll where you can provide support in the process and craft the very best output. And you’re one tough cookie – resilient, can-do and able to juggle a lot of different pressures.

There is one key guiding principle to the Account Manager role at Lucky Generals: CREATE THE LUCKIEST CONDITIONS FOR THE BEST WORK. This is your north star. Everything you do should be geared towards creating the very best work, and it’s your job to ensure the process runs like clockwork.

THE NITTY GRITTY

There are four areas of this role that we think any successful candidate would need to be able to do. We know this is a pretty long list and you might not be an expert in all of it, but please still apply if you’re confident on most of it and would like to develop in the other areas. You might be being too humble! We’re open to candidates who are established Account Managers looking for their next challenge, or Account Executives eager to take a step up.

STRONG RELATIONSHIPS

This is a people job. It’s so important to maintain great relationships both internally and externally, to be respectful and be respected.

• Know your clients inside out – what makes them tick, what they respond well to, the processes their end, organise entertainment etc.
• Have strong relationships with other agencies, keep them informed, glean intell, and share the right assets.
• Maintain strong internal relationships, value everyone’s role and contribution.
• Be skillful at managing up, down and across.
• Develop your Emotional Intelligence. See things from other people’s perspectives, and know how to get what you need from people.
• Be known as a safe and calm pair of hands.
• Celebrate and share successes; recognize and learn from failures.
• Always be positive!

OWN THE PROCESS

At Lucky Generals we work quickly and organically, so an Account Manager must be all over the process and the detail to make sure nothing slips through the cracks.

• Navigate our system well.
• Know the status of all your projects.
• Be able to develop timing plans and make a plan for important milestones and meetings.
• Make sure deadlines and budgets are met.
• Take charge of scheduling meetings and take pride in preparing properly for them.
• Open meetings with clear objectives and good energy, and close them with clear next steps.
• Take notes in meetings, summarise agreements and time-specific actions clearly and articulately.
• Be able to write clear contact reports and status updates.
• Hone the art of communication – clarity, conciseness, persuasion.
• Keep people informed and actively manage expectations.
• Understand how the agency makes money and the importance of resource management.
• Track finances on your account and manage the process – make sure cost estimates are accurate, POs are given, invoices go out and monies are in, reconciliations get done.
• Ensure approvals and prevent write offs.
• Understand budgets, what things cost and why.
• Take pride in being efficient – everything from filing to spellchecking to punctuality.

CREATIVE DRIVE

This is the lifeblood of Lucky Generals. Our creative outlook is broad, modern and differentiating. We think about the world as it is today: content-hungry, multi-channel and always-on way. We are committed to challenging the status quo and genuinely impacting on popular culture regardless of the medium. An Account Manager is expected to deliver against this creative agenda and help push for strong, modern and impactful work at all times.

Specifically an Account Manager should:

• Inspire creative ambition with your clients. Be persuasive around the work.
• Understand what makes effective and culturally impactful work for your brand and for the agency.
• Understand media formats and the contexts for our work.
• Suggest how ideas can be exploded across platforms and across the client organization/business.
• Create the time and appreciation for craft – both ideas and executions.
• Demonstrate strong presentation skills – written and oral.
• Manage the delivery of any materials that bring an idea to life (e.g. mood film)
• Know how to navigate the system so that the right resources are in place and used properly.
• Interrogate and manage creative feedback carefully with our Chief Creative Office, Creative Founder, teams and designers.
• Have a good understanding of the production process across all media.
• Be able to deliver small scale productions; be able to support on large scale productions.
• Have a strong grip of regulatory challenges. Ensure all clearances are in order (e.g. Clearcast).
• Push for Diversity (e.g. in casting)

STRATEGIC UNDERSTANDING

Effectiveness is in our DNA. This is partly because of Andy, our strategic founder’s, personal prowess in this area but equally it’s a cultural mindset that we all share. We are all about behavioural change – we want people to do things, not just feel things, as a result of our work. So, an Account Manager at Lucky Generals should be able to demonstrate sound strategic understanding.

Specifically an Account Manager should:

• Understand the core brand strategy and be able to articulate it.
• Contribute an informed opinion – be an expert on the client’s products and target audiences.
• Monitor competitor work, be able to present reviews and understand their impact on your clients’ audience.
• Support your planner in the development of inspiring and accurate briefs and briefings.
• Be able to write simple tactical briefs.
• Develop your knowledge or research methodologies. Deliver strong stimulus when necessary.
• Be familiar with any key research data / insights.
• Stay up to date on what’s happening in the market and any brand news.
• Stay on top of emerging media formats and consumer trends.