AP- Account PLanning- huh...woh kya hai?

I cant help but wonder as to who came up with the concept of account planning as a function that is part of all top advertsing agencies today. As my experience in the marketing function grows, I am compelled to conclude that this is truly THE most non-productive and worthless function in an advertsing agency.
While there are some brands and categories which have tried to use these individuals soleley because of their good IQs...(that is all you need to be in this function, it requires absolutely no other skillsets and abilities) and also sheer laziness on the clients side, on most brands they are used purely to put together some jazzy presentations- (read- only stye and zero substance) for the top honchos of the agencys.

To give you a very specific example, there was an account planning starlet who put together a flashy presentation and had content which was completely based on a “research” that she claims to have done with a pathetic sample size. The findings were so arbit and mostly based on a lot of her presumptions about the TG. (She dared to present this in front of the Marketing Head of the brand she was working on)

I know I cant blame her completely..thats just the nature of the job of an account planner. Its so vague.

One would have to really struggle to find an apt job description of an account planner- I know some of you who read this line will probably want to throw a pice of paper at me containing the job description. But Im almost certain that it will be nothing but just a collection of facncy words put together. It will read something like this “Must have strategic bent of mind, ability to decode a consumers mind”:)..

God help this function. I for a fact know that I would never require the services of an account planner.