The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

In-housing Capability Agency

Agency vs In-house — getting to the root

Brilliant Noise

|

Open Mic article

This content is produced by a publishing partner of Open Mic.

Open Mic is the self-publishing platform for the marketing industry, allowing members to publish news, opinion and insights on thedrum.com.

Find out more

May 27, 2021 | 5 min read

The in-housing vs agency debate is getting a lot of air time in the marketing world right now

What’s triggered it and what really matters?

We explored this topic over a roundtable with top marketers from international brands across the globe. What did we learn? Brands need efficient, fast, and agile teams in order to do better and bolder marketing. And those teams aren’t built by spending precious time debating in-house vs agency as though it’s a binary choice.

Going round and round in this dizzying debate is just distracting us from the real issue: marketing capability. Marketing capability is the right combination of strategy, talent and ways of working to improve performance in a complex world. Without ensuring your team is fast, efficient and effective, you’ll be hitting the same problems and blockers over and over again, regardless of whether your marketing investment is outsourced or all in-house.

We know that with strong capability, brands can reach target audiences with speed and success. But which of your capabilities need the most attention right now? That’s the real question, so let’s cut to the chase.

Dive into data

These days, we have better access to data than ever before. But, somehow, we know our customers less. Why? Because we’re not finding ways to make data actionable towards real, usable consumer insights. And we can do much better.

We need to start digging into data with the sole purpose of getting to know consumer behaviour, needs and blockers on a genuine, human level, and converting that knowledge into real course correction. Both in-house marketers and agency partners are guilty of looking at consumer data with unhelpful agendas in mind. But, if we can focus it towards customer journey mapping and clear, inspiring personas for teams to come together around, data becomes more objectively actionable.

Access to data should empower teams with the confidence and curiosity to ask the right questions and capture relevant insights. Enough of the overwhelming numbers and confusing spreadsheets — the only way to build marketing capability and do data with speed is by introducing a consistent language around data and sharing insights.

Uniting teams with a common language and mindset

To work quickly and collaboratively, your teams need to be communicating in the same, shared language, towards the same, shared targets. If a brand’s values and central methods are unclear, how can we expect its teams to understand what they’re working in service of and prioritise effectively together? Well, we can’t!

Having a strong, universal vision for better marketing and how to achieve it can be formed and re-enforced through a central hero method. With a single agenda for growth planted in place, marketing capability develops organically from the bottom-up. There’s just no stopping it.

Teams build in confidence and capability when there’s consistent communication. So, it’s time to figure out where the gaps are in your method. Filling them in will not only make you more agile but will also challenge your agency partners to up their game - to adapt and understand your fast and fearless ways of working.

Demystify the digital and build confidence

Now we’re speaking the same language. Awesome. But how can we all move forward together?

Everyone has their own opinion on digital and what it all means for legacy brands. But, the fact is, it’s just the way we do marketing now. It’s about time marketers admitted what they don’t know and moved forward into new, positive perspectives — seeing digital capability for its opportunities for growth in the digital economy.

Organisations need to decode digital in ways that make sense for the whole company. To upskill teams towards digital confidence (and fast), we need to establish a common language for digital based around an organisation’s specific key business challenges. Let’s start talking about innovation, changing consumer behaviours, performance analysis and course correction through a mouthpiece of digital solution.

To dominate digital is to shift the marketing mindset of your entire organisation. No one gets left behind, or everyone does.

Learn and innovate at scale

Consumer needs are changing faster than ever. If our teams aren’t capable, agile and resilient enough to test and learn quickly, we risk being reactive rather than proactive towards effectively reaching the consumer.

True innovators are fearless experimenters, and everyone in your team should have access to all the right resources to be that brilliant. But hierarchical structures and task-driven leadership towards deliverables are so often real stagnators for experimentation. For organisations to gather shared, actionable learnings about how to better target customers, accessible processes, systems and permissions to experiment need to be established company-wide.

With fully integrated communications and the structured permission to fail, teams can act on and learn from multiple business cases with speed and resilience. That’s how we drive performance together.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, in-house or agency? Yawn! Let’s ditch the distractions, look inward, and start addressing the real issues. It’s all about shifting mindsets and building those lasting in-house capabilities as an integral part of your long-term marketing goals.

With a sharp focus on people and processes, our marketing capability services prove it’s possible to create brilliant content while integrating teams and upskilling capability. Sound good? Get in touch to see how we can help.

In-housing Capability Agency

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +