What type of inhouse agency models are there?
At Atos the internal agency is an extension of the partnership it already had in place with its existing agency Oliver. The agency provides staff that work on site within the marketing team. Atos started with four to five people, and have since increased this to eight. The team work on creative and digital, specifically around winning new business.
PwC has consolidated its 33 existing marketing teams that were spread around the business into a single internal agency. These have been divided into functional areas of specialism, including digital, content, campaigns and brand. The agency can also draw on teams such as events and design that sit in different areas. A number of staff have been retained within the business, essentially playing a role equivalent to that of a traditional agency account director.
Deloitte’s internal agency has its own name, 368 – named after the pantone colour of the Deloitte brand. Conceived nine months ago and officially launched in January, it was built from existing elements within the business.
Nick Burbidge, 368’s leader, says the clarity of being set up to deliver as an external agency has been good for everyone. “We have been trying to establish a real agency culture and mentality in 368. We crowdsourced the name from the team because I wanted everyone to feel part of it. We set up our own vision, mission and values that ladder up to the wider Deloitte ambition, but are based on the agency. We’re on a journey, but it’s been very positively received by teams.”
What benefits do an internal agency bring?
A primary benefit of the inhouse model, cited by both Nick and Cat Dutton, VP marketing at Atos, is speed-to-market.
Cat says: “When working on new business with external agencies it was taking a few weeks to go from briefing to outcome. Having these guys on site as part of the team, we can talk in the morning, involve them in workshops throughout the day, and have creative back within 24 hours – that’s been incredible for us.”
Nick adds an internal agency brings a brand understanding that an external agency simply can’t. “If we have an idea that might run into trouble with the brand people, we can pop upstairs and have chat with the brand team and get them on side and involve stakeholders in the process so it becomes co-creation.”
Lucy Birch, director, marketing and brand at PwC, says its blending the best of agency with the best of inhouse. It’s also about future-proofing marketing, and its perception. “We’re still on the journey, but it’s absolutely what marketing needs to do in terms of really demonstrating the commercial value and impact we bring to the business.”
In the previous structure at PwC, promotions were difficult to come by in such small, devolved teams. Implementing a new model has enabled around 30 people to secure promotions. It’s also given them the chance to work across large, fully-integrated campaigns they didn’t previously.
“When working on new business with external agencies it was taking a few weeks to go from briefing to outcome. Having these guys on site as part of the team, we can talk in the morning, involve them in workshops throughout the day, and have creative back within 24 hours – that’s been incredible for us"
What do you need to consider when establishing an internal agency?
It’s not easy, warns Lucy, because such a cultural and behavioural change in mindset is required. It’s vital to focus on people. Everyone she’s recruited in the past year has either been from an agency or a B2C background. This was so the experienced agency marketers could explain how it’s worked elsewhere, which gave Lucy and the team confidence that this journey isn’t going to be terrifying and scary.
If you’re adopting a hybrid model, cultural fit is crucial according to Cat. You need people who understand, or want to understand, your business. They’ll be working with your stakeholders, they need to understand what you’re trying to achieve, and they’ll be representing you and your team.
What’s the biggest thing leaders learned during the process of setting up the internal agency?
It was crucial, for Cat, that due to the small number of people in the team, those hired were the right fit. But to begin with they didn’t, and the model didn’t quite work. “You have to be really conscious of who you’re bringing in, the role they’ll play and the experience they’ve got.”
For Lucy, it was to put more trust in the people behind the process. “We did all these process flows, ways of working, SLA-type agreements between teams in the business and the new model, and it was a nightmare,” she says. The processes had thrown up barriers between people who’d worked together for a long time. The solution was getting rid of the process and just asking people to have a conversation and use common sense was transformational.
Nick agrees it’s all about relationships between the internal agency and stakeholders. “Get that right and you’ve cracked it”. To do this it’s about setting the right parameters, and having clarity over who’s in charge of the creative. Sharing ideas sooner rather than later will avoid making too much progress on a non-starter, which is so much easier when all sides are part of the same organisation.
"We did all these process flows, ways of working, SLA-type agreements between teams in the business and the new model, and it was a nightmare"
How do you balance internal and external agencies?
One of the reasons to move to this internal model, says Cat, was to bring in external experience and push the boundaries on creative. It’s not about simply scaling up, but “to push and keep pushing, as that’s how we differentiate ourselves”.
An internal agency can be far more cost effective than an external agency would be, but focusing on it as a cost saving exercise undersells the other benefits, says Nick.
How does accountability work with an internal agency?
It’s not compulsory to use 368 at Deloitte, but Nick and the team strive to offer stakeholders everything they’d get from an external supplier with all the benefits of inhouse previously mentioned. As part of the organisation the agency has a vested interest in ensuring the quality of the work is up to scratch.
At PwC, the emphasis is on a ‘one team’ culture – whether in the marketing role aligned to the business or in the centre of excellence. Everyone has responsibility of ensuring a quality output.
“There is a massive incentive to sit down together and work things through, as by having an internal agency model everyone has genuinely shared goals and objectives,” Lucy says. “This means that everyone is equally invested in taking learnings onboard and sharing them across projects to ensure the quality and impact of what we do continues to improve.”
Neither 368 nor PwC uses an internal budget recharging system (sometimes known as ‘wooden dollars’), except in some specific instances.
Lucy adds: “We do track time on campaigns and projects to help us understand and appreciate the total investment we are making in developing and delivering our marketing activity. This also gives us a better view of total time and cash investment, and the mix of specialist skills required to take things to market.”
“You look at what’s happening in the US, where 80% of brands now have some type of agency offering inhouse, and inhouse is no longer seen as a barrier to producing great work. It’s becoming the ‘place to be’”
Is it difficult to recruit good creatives to an internal agency?
The reputation of internal agencies is growing all the time, says Nick. As brands such as Lego, Google and the BBC take this approach it is becoming a more attractive proposition. “You look at what’s happening in the US, where 80% of brands now have some type of agency offering in-house, and in-house is no longer seen as a barrier to producing great work. It’s becoming the ‘place to be’ and it seems in-house in the UK is on a similar trajectory,” he says.
Because cultural fit is so important, finding the right people might take slightly longer. But large enterprise organisations employing this strategy, such as PwC, Deloitte and Atos could offer more varied or a higher volume of career opportunities you wouldn’t get inhouse at a small B2B agency.
How do you keep an in-house team fresh when they’re only working on one account?
Most businesses capable of using the internal agency model are large, diverse businesses with a range of stakeholders and different projects, so there should be enough to maintain a fresh perspective.
Atos’ hybrid model is particularly advantageous here, as the team still work at Oliver, they can continually bring new ideas, creative and best practice. Cat adds: “We also run lunch and learn sessions once a month where new concepts, technologies or marketing techniques we aren’t using are explored so that we can learn from what others are doing in our industry and look at how we might adopt some of this within our business.”
Nick adds: “Some people actually really relish the opportunity to be embedded within the business, which gives the chance to be involved much more upstream in shaping strategy, approach and even product design.”
