Tony Stead, who held a number of roles at J Walter Thompson, has died after a short illness.
Stead joined JWT's media department in the early 1960s, rising to group head and was involved, alongside Stephen King, in developing account planning – an idea that revolutionised the way that advertising was created.
He is credited with inventing the term "account planner/planning".
King, who died in 2006, once explained how the pair came up with the term: "We started by not knowing what on Earth to call it. We thought of brand planner and we used that as a code for a while. Then people said that 'brand' suggests small packaged things, so Tony said: 'Why don't you call them account planners?' And that was that."
In the late 1980s, as head of the account planning department, Stead played a major role in compiling and disseminating "The Thompson Way" approach across the network.
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