The mattress company Saatva has discovered something that would have seemed improbable to Madison Avenue a generation ago: you can lease a luxury home in West Hollywood, staff it with 16 people, and produce more advertising in a year than most brands used to make in five.

David Link, the chief creative officer of Saatva, will discuss the company's in-house creative operation at the Association of National Advertisers' In-House Agency Conference later this month in Huntington Beach, Calif. In advance of that appearance, Mr. Link offered a detailed accounting of what happens when a brand decides it no longer needs to rent the traditional agency apparatus.

The numbers are striking, if only because they suggest how much the old model depended on overhead that had little to do with the work itself. Mr. Link's team of 16 — with a core video unit of just six people — produced five to seven television spots last year, along with more than 100 social videos, eight to 10 photo shoots, retail content, out-of-home assets, and a podcast series. The company estimates it is saving millions of dollars annually while producing, in Mr. Link's words, "exponentially more work."

(One hesitates to call this a trend, given that the advertising industry has been predicting the death of the agency model for approximately as long as it has been predicting the death of the 30-second spot, which is to say, continuously and incorrectly.)

The centerpiece of the operation is Saatva House, a leased property that serves as permanent set, editing suite, podcast studio, and occasional site for what Mr. Link described as "off-sites, affiliate and partner events, and creative meetings." It is, in effect, a soundstage that happens to have a kitchen.

Mr. Link was careful to note that artificial intelligence has become "a real multiplier" for the team, though he emphasized that it has not replaced the humans who make taste-level decisions. "The human part still matters most," he said, which is the sort of thing one says in 2025 whether one believes it or not.

Original story published in MediaPost: "In-Housing Creativity: A Conversation With Saatva's David Link"