Campaign In-Housing Summit

By Alex Steele

AAR was one of the partners at Campaign’s In-Housing Summit in October 2022, which brought together a great set of speakers, panellists and presenters from a healthy mix of CMOs, creative leaders and in-house agency leaders. We supported the event in a number of ways. Our CSO, George Porteous, was on a panel around Inter-Agency Collaboration, while Vicky Gillan and Alex Steele talked to attendees at our stand.

While the content was in-house specific, the overall takeaway from the event was that the world of in-housing is maturing and becoming more confident as a result, which has an impact on external agencies. There were four key pieces of evidence.

In-housing is not primarily about cost-saving. This was mentioned multiple times on the day. Cost saving can be an output of in-housing, but it shouldn’t be an input. Driving business growth, control and efficiency in an always-on world are bigger levers, with any cost savings being a happy bi-product. AAR’s own research supports this.

In-house agencies know their remit. They need to establish that as part of the process of setting up so that they can succeed and so they can engage with external agencies. As such, they are not pretending to be something they are not. For instance, increasingly in-house agencies don’t like to be called in-house agencies. They see themselves as an integral part of the business; the creative vision is linked to the business plan and has an influence on business planning and driving innovation.

The quality of the creatives and the creative is improving. The snobbery that in-house creatives ‘used to be the poor relation’ as James Turner at Waitrose put it, is dissipating. There was also an acknowledgement that to overcome any sense of going stale, you need

to over-invest in training and inspiration for creatives in-house. Similarly securing the budget to enter awards schemes helps with recruitment and retention, just as it does in external agencies.

Strategic and planning roles are becoming more prominent. They tend to be in place in the more successful in-house teams and were in most in-house teams featured at the event. This is the next stage of the evolution of in-house teams as they build on strong production foundations with great creative as a result of insightful planning and briefs.

As in-house teams grow up, how they engage with external agencies is becoming more self-assured. While few brands will in-house everything, working with in-house teams will become the reality on most accounts as inhousing continues to rise. How agencies engage with in-house teams will be crucial. Ross Sergeant at Asahi called out what a great support his media agency was as the brand moved to an in-house model, and HSBC had a similar experience with their digital agency, but that isn’t always the case. Working together is the reality and is mutually beneficial for your shared client when done well. The days of squabbling with the older siblings are coming to an end. There is room for both. They can even get on with each other. ●

At the beginning of a new growth journey, we knew that we needed the support of experts to help us choose the right agency partner. The team at AAR were invaluable. They took the logistical pain out of the process and created a really exciting and fun programme for us. They shared their knowledge generously and were a valuable sounding board, quickly understanding our business challenge and company culture. I look forward to working with the team again.