The Hybrid Approach
The median tenure for a CMO was 27.5 months last year, down from 31 months in 2017. With such a limited time horizon afforded, CMO’s need the right tools to make an immediate impact.
In this post I want to discuss the high-level creative model I believe to be the optimum approach, striking a balance between the efficiency of an internal team and external expertise offered by the right creative partners.
Beware the pitfalls
The reality is you need some kind of hybrid approach whether you call it that or not. You can’t produce everything end to end in-house and it would be foolish to try to do so. If a brand tries to do too much in-house, it introduces the following risks…
Developing an echo chamber. This is a terrible outcome because by removing dissenting voices you can end up developing work that is, at best, more of the same - but at worst damaging for your brand.
Standing still. The marketing landscape evolves quickly, and it is only by welcoming the industry in, that you can learn and evolve as a team.
Opportunity cost for misused headcount. You can make the case for hiring (for example) a third production designer and saving $X dollars, but headcount tends to be finite in every planning cycle. If you used that headcount to hire a leader that opens a new channel or focuses on a new line of business, you’ll likely see a better return.
Loss of agility. The needs of the business and marketing landscape can rapidly change. If you have a bloated team, it’s difficult to react quickly. Worse still, because jobs are reliant on maintaining the status quo, you’ll introduce resistance to change which could be even more damaging.
Conversely, if you have a very small and tightly scoped internal creative team, you will likely have problems attracting and keeping the right talent. Top creative talent won’t want to take a brand side role if scope is limited to developing performance media executions 5 days a week. As with everything in life, balance is key.
The hybrid approach
Brands need different tools to take on different opportunities. Sometimes it’s all about speed to market, sometimes a deep understanding of the business is required to crack an idea. The opposite could also be true, when having none of the baggage of the business allows a fresh POV to challenge the status quo. At times a nimble team is needed to take on something unplanned, and frequently you’ll need to deliver high quality at scale. The ambition should always be to reduce friction and enable a marketing team to deliver against all of its priorities. Experience suggests the model below enables that.
Component 1: In-house team
Once you have made the decision to build an in-house team, I believe they should become the centre of your creative universe in order to get the most value out of them. That doesn’t mean they need to execute everything, but they should be involved at the highest level. Key to this is having a creative director who can seamlessly switch between leading the internal team & inspiring an external agency. Easy to say, less easy to find.
(I promise the diagram will get more interesting…)
Pros - Deep brand knowledge, proximity to the business, speed to market, efficient spend, results driven
Cons - Lack external influence, static talent pool
Component 2: Flex staffing
The amount and type of work that needs to get done will change and evolve throughout the year. Even if your marketing team does an amazing job planning (and sticking to that plan), you will still cycle between planning, ideation, execution and sustain / optimize states. Creative needs will evolve with each state, so establishing a way to flex the in-house team is critical to it meeting those changing needs.
There are plenty of staffing companies available, and you can run an RFP just like any creative partner. The trick is to put as much emphasis on solving operational challenges (background checks, on-boarding, IT setup) as recruitment prowess.
Pros - Manage fluctuating workload, add specializations, maintain a bench of talent, recruitment pipeline, relatively small mark-up on talent.
Cons - Overhead identifying good talent, need to manage FTE + freelance culture.
Component 3: Creative consultants
With an in-house team and the ability to flex that team in place, one of the biggest potential cost savings for your team now exists in creative consultants. These are creatives that have got to a point in their career when it doesn’t make sense for them to work at an agency any longer. They can make more money freelancing, enjoy the freedom or are considering starting their own agency. They are top talent, eager to do great work and you can get them without the agency trimmings you may not want or need. They can be bolted on to the in-house team, run discreet projects or run in competition against more established agency partners in a concept development phase.
Pros - Senior talent, lean agency alternative, highly motivated, no ‘agency fat’ included
Cons - Variable availability, overhead required to maintain network
Component 4: Thought partners
In my view, the best thing about agencies is that they challenge your thinking. If they don’t, then you aren’t getting the value you should be. As a brand, you need a market place for ideas to evolve, and dissenting voices will more frequently come from outside the organization. The trick is knowing when to invite them in. My perspective is; whenever they are set up to succeed and will deliver great value.
Pros - Outside perspective, disruptive thinking, top talent, external capacity
Cons - Relatively high mark-up on talent, inefficiencies due to ‘hand-off’ nature of relationship
Component 5: Production partners
Once an idea has been landed (internally or with an agency), assets will need to be produced and versioned to fulfill the comms plan pulled together by brand & channel teams. Previously agencies often managed this process, but with an internal team in place there are significant cost savings and control benefits to be had. This is when the producers of your in-house team come into their own. Typically some execution work can be done internally at very little cost, but some will need external expertise & scale. Having the right partners’ setup will elevate the work and enable delivery at scale when needed.
Pros - High quality finishes, speciality executions, hugely scalable.
Cons - Relatively high mark-up on talent, need careful oversight from production & creative teams.
Summary
I’ve outlined some of the strengths and weaknesses to each of the components. Ultimately budget plays a huge part in deciding what you can or can not activate. In order for your hybrid model to succeed, you need the right creative operating system. For me that includes the right talent, tools, process and partners.
I’m Joel, founder & principal consultant at Double O. I’ve called AKQA, The Mill, Beats By Dr. Dre and Apple home. It’s not building teams that I love, it’s building great teams. joel@double-o.cc .
