• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, September 4, 2020

Large global marketers are rapidly expanding the scale of their in-house creative agencies, particularly for digital content, according to new research issued by the World Federation of Advertisers and research firm The Observatory International.

The research is based on a survey of 53 multinational advertisers that spend a combined $83 billion on media annually.

About 57% of multinational marketers now have in-house creative agencies, with about 75% of those shops set up in the last five years.

More than 90% of all in-house shops have digital creative capabilities, while about half offer media planning and buying services.

Nearly all the respondents (95%) said they continue to work with external agencies. On average, about 37% of the creative output now comes from the in-house team.

The core content being handled in-house includes video creative and production, email/CRM, social media and, to a lesser degree, display and website development.

The firms cite cost-efficiencies, improved integration and more agile processes as top reasons for setting up in-house shops.

KPI’s used to assess performance include quality of output (81%), cost savings (52%) and speed to market (38%).

Most in-house agencies (57%) employ 50 or fewer people although nearly one-quarter reported employing more than 100 people.