Career as an advertising account planner?

Eversince college, I have always aspired to be an Account Planner in a multinational advertising agency. I have worked as an account executive in a local ad agency in Manila for more than a year and now I am in a large market research company, working as a panel analyst. Am I on the right track? Should I move to customized research in the future? What other skills should i develop? What do you think should be my next step?

Career as an advertising account planner?
Account planning is a strategic tool for the consumer insight mining.





Generally account planning is a senior level position in an advertising agency. As you might know the involves evolving the overall strategic plan including the budget, selecting the right media and zeroing-in on the communication message after interacting with the client and internally with the creative team, the media planning department and if necessary, the market research agency.





Understanding consumers is the most important skill you need as an account planner.





I think you are on a right track except you are not working in an advertising agency. I think your next career move should be getting back into an ad agency and make your way up to the account planning.





Skills as I mentioned earlier you need to be tracking market trends and consumer insights, and understanding the target audiences create a pool of data that is available continuously. All the best.





Cheers!
Reply:you are probably on the right track working as an account executive. the marketing research company might be a step in a different direction. i think you should be working in the accounts department. but i don't know really. i haven't even graduated college yet, so you have much more experience than I do.
Reply:What
Reply:Yo yo yo! That account planner gets it right.