Data, culture and the talent challenge for in-house agencies were high on the agenda this week, as ISBA’s head of TV and video, Bobi Carley spoke at a panel event hosted by Ciesco.
Although the topic is an enduring one, some of the modern challenges are new said the panel which featured Karen Boswell, chief experience officer EMEA, VMLY&R, Ajoy Roy-Chowdhury, agency lead EMEA Facebook, and Matt Girling, head of Europe tech, Ebiquity.
Ciesco itself reports that brands looking to in-house agency models as they want to move quicker with more efficiency and have more direct access to key talent in marketing disciplines.
“Brands want more ownership of first-party data and measurement – it’s about transparency and the challenge GDPR has created around the portability of data,” Bobi explains.
“We heard at the ISBA Annual Conference earlier this year, the stark facts about the lack of trust consumers have in the advertising industry. From consumer privacy to brand safety and the rise of fake news, there are many key areas of concern and, by in-housing data and data sources, brands can better understand the customer journey and, ultimately, establish more trust,” she adds.
Another big challenge is ensuring you have the right talent in place to make the in-house agency work.
“Talent is the challenge,” says Bobi. “The speed and rate of industry change is so high and top talent is so difficult to retain – it’s proved a problem for several of our members. Many need the stimulus and buzz of different clients and categories. Lack of talent and skills is a big problem. It does not matter how much you invest in tech, unless you have human capacity you have no advantage.”