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I’m 42 and in-house at a food company and I love it. Yes there’s new shit you never see at an agency (internal approval matrix of fools who want to see everything, global politics and lots of testing protocols). BUT for the most part, in-house teams are definitely getting a lot of love and support from within. Money is so much better since your bonus and salary are not tied to the whims of new marketing VPs, or bad agencies in your network that drag down profit and you get punished for it. If your product is selling well, you reap the rewards really no matter what you do. I have complete autonomy really of my team and culture/vision. WLB is 9-5 end of story. Also we have no timesheets or “in office checkers”. The old big agency culture is gone and never coming back and I will never go back either. One other challenging thing however is if you inherit talent from “the old days”, they can be very behind in what they know but have very unrealistic expectations. IE they’ve been coddled and not exposed to the crucible that makes creatives good in an agency.
Having experience on both sides gives so much insight. While true that in-house creatives aren't exposed to "high-caliber" expectations and the madness of agencies, I think creatives in agencies grow so out of touch with what a company really is; it's a bunch of internal politics in a machine of many cogs. Agencies are exposed to only a pair of them. They have no influence over the other aspects of the client's business and thus undervalue them. Inside, you, as part of the cog, have negotiation power to develop a better brand and business, from product to finance to customer service to internal culture. It just takes patience and building good internal dynamics, though. Nevertheless, it's crystal clear what the real value of a brand/company/product only by seeing it from the inside.
Agencies indulge in the "game" of making the bigger creative thing, but that's only a fraction of what a company is and what it does. A company can't be just words, pretty images, and attention-grabbing activities.
I'm honestly disappointed by moving from in-house to an agency because we operate on brands from such a surface level that it's hardly convenient. Then, the clients often have no idea how to manage creative work, so they take whatever trash they get after making their fair amount of guesswork / misinformed feedback. Anyway, just to say that misalignment is so common is ridiculous. A whole in-house agency would be the optimal scenario imo.
Yes
Mentor
You should’ve started making this move 5 years ago.
It’ll never be as “fun” as it USED TO BE at agencies so those days are done anyway. While brand can be slow, political, and frustrating the WLB and $$$ make it worth while.
Doesn’t matter the industry, this is true. Even the studios despise screenwriters.
Exactly what I just did. Smart move if you can make it happen. Many tech companies are cutting contracts with their agencies and bringing creative work in-house.