There was a time, not so long ago, when bringing advertising work inside the corporate walls was presented primarily as an accounting decision — a way to pay fewer agency fees and maintain somewhat more control over one's own brand assets. It was the marketing equivalent of doing your own taxes: not glamorous, but defensibly cheaper.
That time, it seems, may be passing.
A survey released by the Association of National Advertisers suggests that marketers have begun to view their in-house agencies less as cost centers and more as what the association calls "strategic partners." According to the survey, 53 percent of respondents now describe their in-house teams in those elevated terms, while only 9 percent still characterize in-housing primarily as a money-saving maneuver.
The shift is notable in part because it represents a marked change from the same survey conducted in 2023, when respondents still cited cost savings as the primary rationale for keeping work inside. (Apparently it takes about a year for a line item to become a strategic asset.)
"From what I've seen, the conversation has evolved from more of a cost-saving starting point for in-housing to understanding how to build great creative," said Peter Kenigsberg, vice president of talent and marketing operations at the A.N.A.
The findings will not be greeted warmly at the holding companies, which have spent the better part of a decade watching clients siphon off work that once flowed reliably to agency rosters. What began as production tasks and social media posts has, in some cases, grown into full creative departments with their own executive creative directors and, increasingly, their own ambitions.
Whether those ambitions are matched by the talent and organizational patience required to produce genuinely good work remains, as always, the open question — one that the survey, perhaps wisely, did not attempt to answer.
Original story published in adweek.com: "Once a Cost-Cutting Move, In-House Agencies Are Now Seen as a Strategic Play"