Jenny Powers has 12 years experience as a senior account manager with a small marketing and advertising firm called Innovcom. She has experience in client relations, proposal and presentation preparation and delivery, art and print production, direct mail and media placement. Innovcom targets the health care, specifically patient, physician and pharmacist educational materials in the managed care environment.

Jenny’s other related duties include production management, traffic and account management. She says the agency is small and staff members have multiple responsibilities.




Jenny, we always ask our ad agency members about the current ad slump.

The economy has made our clients more cautious of spending, reduced budgets affect the projects that can be developed and the print runs associated with those projects. In general, marketing and advertising budgets are cut first when the economy is in a downturn.

Are most of your projects directed from a planned media schedule and how do your printers react to your needs?

Many of our projects are begun at the last minute due to uncertainty of availability of funding. Therefore, our vendors "save the day" with quick turnaround and delivery on time and one budget. We tend to work with one source for digital printing and a few others for traditional offset printing. The choice of offset printers depends upon the print run and delivery due date.

Does your firm proof print projects over the Internet and how has the web been used in your office?

The only change is the ease of approval of projects prior to printing. The Internet and e-mail makes it possible to use PDF proofs instead of color comps, thus eliminating overnight mail to clients for approval.

Give us an example of one of your vendors “consulting with you.”

Our vendor wanted to show us various backing materials for posters rather than just explain them. He had samples on hand and was thorough in explaining advantages and disadvantages of each. We made our selection and produced the posters for a professional association awards meeting. The product was delivered on time, appearance was very good and the client was satisfied.

Tell us about one of your largest jobs your agency has produced.

We printed a series of 4 patient education pieces at a print run of 750,000 each. The project was also printed in smaller quantities in Spanish. The printer produced the job on time and within budget. Everyone was pleased with the result and some of the brochures have been reprinted as quantities run low.