Account Executive

This week blog I decided to write about my summer internship.

This past summer, I flew back home to visit my family in Thailand and got a chance to intern at an image marketing company where I worked as an Account Executive. Account Executive (AE). The AE position is a dream career position for many Thai people. However, I'd like to end some misconceptions concerning what being an AE is really all about.

First, as an AE, you have to distinguish whether you work for an agency or for an organization (corporate). The company where I interned was an organization.

An agency can be divided into different areas of expertise such as Advertising, Public Relations (PR), Event and Media.  The areas of focus of the different types of agencies are varied. The difference between working in oranizations and agencies is that the agency has a variety of clients, in which case it helps to learn and better understand the overall industry.

For the corporate, the structure of the organization can be divided into 5 areas: Account Management, sometimes called Client Services, Media Planning & Relations, News Monitoring, Finance, and Human Resource.

AE falls into the account management area. The main duty of account management is to oversee customer communications by taking the customer’s problems and planning high-level resolution strategies. Some agencies might have a strategic planning division that directly does strategic planning. Because this position serves to contact the customer directly and needs to advise clients continuously, it is necessary for those who are in this position to develop good client relations with an attitude toward service, patience, and problem solving.

After the plan is created, it is indispensable to send a message to the audience through the media. Access to the media is another important element. The media relations division is primarily responsible for establishing contacts and relations with the media.

A good PR person reports news related to corporate customers such as competitors and industry news as well as other related news that might affect the client’s business.  A good resource for the PR person is the clipping department which has the primary responsibility for monitoring news which is then reported by AE to the customers.

This is a summary of what I learned by working as an intern Account Executive throughout my summer in Thailand.  It was a valuable experience and added to my portfolio of resources.