Fun Fact: Mudra Advertising was an in-house agency for Reliance Industries with just 500 sq.ft carpet space, 15 employees and 40,000 startup capital.
This piece of trivia is more than enough for any multinational or even a national company to think of starting an in-house advertising division. The phenomenon that Mudra (DDB Mudra Group) has become today, is nothing short of a historic journey. Also, with Byju’s in-house ad agency making it to the Cannes Festival and bagging that Silver Lion is yet another feat, not many full-service ad agencies in India could have achieved. This article talks in length about how the mindset of the brands is shifting from full-service ad agencies to in-house agencies and how this is impacting the advertising industry on a greater level.
Re-sourcing Ideas
In the initial days, it was all about ideas. Advertising agencies were the undisputed kings and queens of sourcing these coveted ‘ideas’. Every creative idea that was published, was the brainchild of some copywriter, or creative director, or graphic designer, from some ad agency that was hired by the company to ‘think of ideas’. Today, most of those ideas come from the company personnel (regardless of the creative part) citing the brief as ‘we want you to think on these lines’, followed by some screenshots from Pinterest. Ad agencies earlier used to bring fresh perspectives to the table in a product launch meeting while the in-house agencies focused on refining their other multidimensional aspects of their business.
When a brand decides to source its advertising needs, it always believes that someone who knows the company inside out, someone who understands the brand, the people, the market, can do a fairly good job and give us great results. And that someone always happens to be their own people, most of the times. That’s the reason most of the brands these days find it easy working with in-house agencies rather than an external agency.
Our Mind. Our People. Our Ideas.
While a brand chooses an in-house agency, it chooses so because of several reasons.
Matches the brand culture & knowledge: An in-house agency knows when a product will be launched, what are the pros and cons, how will the audience react/respond to it and what can be done to counter the criticism.
There’s enhanced transparency: A company would always prefer sharing their innermost secretive details about the upcoming product/service with their own people rather than an outsider and that itself adds to the trust factor.
It increases the effectiveness of an idea: When an idea comes from within the company, it surely has its confidentiality entrusted within its people. When the employees feel such reciprocation from the brand, they surely will deliver their best and why not! Minimum miscommunication, minimum people in the chain and optimum results.
If that were the case, why are full-services agencies still flourishing? Here’s another take on why the brands choose otherwise?
Delegation of authority: As an advertising agency, they would be held responsible for the brand’s overall performance. Ad agencies become brand custodians and take up on the role of ensuring the brand reaches its expected results.
Dynamic, yet different approach: As in-house agencies are limited with the ideas or knowledge they have about the problem, the outsider agency (sob, sob) takes a rather dynamic, creative or an unrelated approach to a new problem and arrive at a unique solution.
Experts in the game: While the in-house agencies take up advertising as a project, for advertisers in the ad agencies, it is their whole life and they’ve been doing the job quite marvellously. The skill set of people in the ad agencies will any day outweigh the rest of them in the in-house department.
They are adaptive, creative & effective: When it comes to choosing a full-fledged ad agency over the in-house agency, the former tops the chart with full points for adapting to the brand challenges, conceptualizing with creative ideas and delivering a cost-effective solution.
So, which one is the best? The buzzword for the day is ‘Hybrid’ – meaning, the company gets to choose the best from both worlds.
At 3 Dots Design Pvt. Ltd., we are a seven-year-old ad agency in Pune with our expertise in advertising across print, digital and outdoor, along with 3D visualization and architectural rendering services. Being one of the best 360-degree ad agencies in Pune, we have a fair share of clientele who have flourished and have been loving our creative work. If you wish to know more about who we are or what we’ve been doing for our clients, please visit www.3dotsdesign.in or get in touch with us at contact@3dotsdesign.in to help build your brand in a better, creative and effective way.