In-House Media Strategy Expected To Grow

Media, long-regarded as the area of overall advertising and marketing strategy to be retained by outside agencies, is the one area global ad expects expect to move more in-house. That's one of the findings of a new "in-housing" study released Tuesday by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA).

While less than a third (30%) of WFA member respondents said their media strategy currently is handled at least in part by an in-house agency, it is expected to rise three percentage points to 33% in the near future.

That may not be a significant change, but it is the only area of advertising/brand strategy moving increasingly in the in-house direction, with the exception of "other," which the WFA study did not define.

Creative strategy, which currently is handled by 52% of in-house agencies, is projected to decline eight percentage points to 44%, while brand strategy is expected to drop 11 percentage points to 22%.

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In-house strategy trending aside, the study does not actually put a dimension o the degree of strategic work handled in-house vs. through outside agencies.

"What isn’t clear from the research is whether 'strategic thinking' is unique to the in-house offering, or has some relationship with creative or brand strategy from the external suppliers who are developing ‘big ideas'," the report notes, adding, "Not to align strategy across all touch points is risky and likely to lead to consumer confusion and disengagement."

In terms of explicit media planning and buying services, the new WFA study shows a decrease currently in digital media planning and buying handled in-house vs. a similar study conducted in 2020, but most of the current respondents expect the in-house servicing to increase soon.

In terms of traditional media planning and buying, the current study shows in-house services have grown since 2020, but current respondents expect it them to move completely outside soon.

The percentage of respondents saying none of their media is handled in-house has declined from 50% in 2020 to 44% currently to 0% expected soon.

2 comments about "In-House Media Strategy Expected To Grow".
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  1. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, December 20, 2023 at 9:55 a.m.

    Joe, I can't comment on what is happening in Portugal or Siam but in The States I don't think I'd be too worried about clients going in-house for branding ad buys in TV/video at least on a national basis. As for other media---especially on the local side, who knows? Spot TV and radio---probably not so much. Digital, likely. As for media planning, that's always a toss up as far too many media plans have built in client must buys---often accounting for much of the ad spend. So, in reality, the "plan" may be merely a budgeting operation, telling the brand how much it's spending---and when--but not really showing serious alternatives as these will not be considered. Which is a shame---and a blot on the reputation of  CMOs who allow this situation to continue on far too many brands.

    The trend for going in-house is, however, evident for sales promoition campaigns as many of these involve one-shot media splurges designed to hype short term sales or to deal with emerging PR and related issues. Here, many specialized promo agencies should feel threatened---even if the branding shops are still fairly safe.

  2. John Grono from GAP Research, December 20, 2023 at 3:10 p.m.

    I wonder whether they realise the cost of the data and software for all the various media research that they would need in order to go in-house.  

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