Why CMOs relied more on in-house agencies in the pandemic and what is next – AdAge.com

Tapping into a remote workforce

Checkers was able to build its in-house team to 40 from 18 staffers during the last year because many are working remotely. Chambers said video conferencing tools helped with recruiting.

Its allowed us to hire amazing talent, he said. When we look at being able to hire different people, in Baltimore or Phoenix, I can hire and not worry about whether people are willing to move.

The team at Columbia Threadneedle Investments, a asset management company,was virtual throughout the pandemic and it created more confidence in remote work, according to Marc Williams, director of digital content strategy.

Even if you hadnt worked that way in the past you had to adapt pretty quickly for me, he said. Personally, I wasnt that big of a fan of working remotely but now its become second nature.

At spice marketer McCormick & Co., the internal creative and digital team produces 80% of the food brands marketing content, including digital shelf graphics, social media messaging, recipe videos and long-form storytelling on YouTube. Alia Kemet, VP of creative and digital marketing at McCormick, said that hiring people with a positive attitude and willingness to deploy multiple skills is crucial. One of the brands producers recently performed double-duty as a TikTok personality, for example, after McCormick had noticed that its TikTok content was not working and that a more human touch was needed.

TikTok content is not the same as Instagram content or Facebook content, said Kemet. The importance of authenticity and being scrappy and feeling like its from a person and not from a brand is critical. McCormick has had similar success being nimble on social media by creating ASMR content internally to meet current trends at a faster pace than it would have by outsourcing such content to an agency, Kemet said.

For Stanford Health Care, the ability of staffers to play multiple roles helped with moral, according to Corey Dill, director of marketing operations.

The lines of demarcation between roles and responsibilities disintegrated, in a good way, he said, noting that many pitched. It allowed us to leverage more people on the team and I dont think anything gave people more morale than feeling like they were helping.

Iovate Health Sciences, which sells food brands such as Hydroxycut and Muscle Tech, handles its media buying and production internally. CMO Jarrod Jordan said a key for being successful with taking media in-house is not relying on customized products. Jordan advised that brands looking to build their tech stacks internally buy off-the-shelf technologies and limit the need to continually update any customized products. The less customization a brand has, the less risk, Jordan said.

Ive seen organizations that built tech stacks with a lot of customization but as time goes by as the different types of tools evolve and they do the next release, you may find that you have an entire team thats spending weeks every month or every quarter updating their code in order to match whats changed and that becomes expensive, he said, advising brands to try to use as much as you can with off-the-shelf technologies.

Will the in-housing trend outlive the pandemic?Andrea Ruskin, in-house agency and creative marketing consultant at Blum Consulting Partners, suggested it will, sayingthe ability of the groups to create content at rapid speed built confidence and trust in the in-house model.

Marketers needed to have a certain level of trust and confidence in their in-house teams to be able to deliver with the demands of what the pandemic brought on, she said. Theyre in-house because they have an understanding of the business and business needs and what drives business forward and thats a huge advantage to the IHA.

After the years experience, Aleka Sansom, executive creative director at Vanguard, said that in-house agencies will be focused on proving the value they provide to the business beyond just speed of operation.

Looking at the value of the business were contributing to is a really important part of the overall access and measurement metrics of an in-house agency, she said.

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Why CMOs relied more on in-house agencies in the pandemic and what is next - AdAge.com