In-house agencies have been warned to stop “taking orders” and start moving up the value chain, or risk being replaced by artificial intelligence (AI).
That was the strong message delivered at today’s In-House Agency Council (IHAC) Summit in Sydney, which brought together 200 brand, agency and media leaders.
IHAC executive chairman Chris Maxwell urged brands and in-house teams alike to evolve beyond service-provider status and position themselves as strategic growth partners.
“If you don’t start moving up the value chain AI will do it,” ex-CUB and ABInBev marketer Maxwell cautioned.
“You’ve got to start moving from being a service provider and order taker and become a strategic growth partner.”
Talking to B&T, Maxwell expanded on his statement, saying many in-house agencies begin as small design studios focused on production tasks, then gradually expand into video, social, media, strategy and beyond. But unless the business deliberately elevates their role, they risk remaining in a subservient “order-taker” position, simply responding to briefs with outputs.
In contrast, the strongest in-house agencies, he said, are those that shift to tackling business problems, bringing creative and strategic thinking to the table, and holding accountability for outcomes.
While he stopped short of calling output-focused teams “disposable,” Maxwell warned that commoditised functions are more vulnerable to automation or replacement. The real advantage of in-house teams, he added, is their proximity to the business—giving them insights and access external agencies rarely have, and enabling them to apply creativity directly to business priorities.
“You’ve got to elevate your role within the business,” Maxwell said. “It’s not about just delivering outputs. The best in-house teams are briefed on business problems, and they bring creative thinking to solve them—pushing back on the brief if needed, and focusing on outcomes rather than just outputs,” he said.
The role of AI in reshaping creativity and operations was a recurring theme during the event, with Sportsbet GM of marketing Tim Hernadi revealing how generative AI tools had slashed in-house campaign production from three months to five weeks and saved $150,000 in post-production.
Speaking on the ‘AI in Practice’ panel, Hernadi spoke about how creating an original animated character for creative assets may have in the past taken a whole day to create but ChatGPT and image editing tool Nano Banana have slashed the time to 20 minutes.
Sportsbet used ChatGPT for scripting and lyrics, Sora for style frames and storyboarding, Hedra for video generation and lip syncing and Suno and Udio for music generation for the campaign below, with Hernadi saying the cost and time savings were significant.
In six months time he said they’ll no doubt have a whole new slew of AI tools to add to its current stack.
Test, Use, Abandon – Don’t Stick To One Tool
Before an ad can run on free-to-air TV, it has to be approved and CAD (Commercials Advice) paperwork is needed. Hernadi explained that this approval process used to be a slow, repetitive, and fiddly manual job—exactly the kind of task where AI has stepped in to make things faster and easier.
Year to date the Sportsbet team has created 1,600 CADs, taking about 100 hours.
Now, it has an AI-created multiagent CAD workflow and a process that can create them significantly quicker.
On words of advice to others, Hernadi explained how the business started with processes that don’t use personal information or sensitive data, which is a great place to start.
“Fail fast is the biggest learning we have had. We have tried a whole bunch of AI tools but equally we have also abandoned a lot of them,” he said.
“Don’t get too wedded in using one tool as the technology is changing at such a fast pace.”
Announcing the launch of the IHAC AI Council, Maxwell professed he was sick of the shallow and proliferation of self-appointed LinkedIn AI experts, adding that the council will be a forum for genuine sharing and learning about AI with peers.
In addition there will be a series of training and capability building initiatives focused on in-house agencies and marketers, as well as the creation of an advisory board for steering the industry.
Hire Slow Fire Fast
The full day event at the Grounds of Alexandria featured brands with in-house and hybrid in-house agencies including Youi, Uber and Westpac.
Speaking on ‘Creatively Evolving Your Operations’ panel, a trio of powerhouse women discussed resourcing and the importance of creativity, culture and onboarding the right balance of staff.
Sarah Hetherington, head of production and operations at CB Agency, which has 24 people, said her top advice was around taking the time to get the right people when it comes to the in-house team.
“Hire slow, fire fast and if it’s not working, call it,” she said.
Gemma Poesaste, head of Telstra’s in-house creative agency, resonated with hiring slow mantra and carefully managing the flow of incoming staff.
“People are such a big part of the evolution of in-house agency,” she said.
“The one thing we are really clear on is ‘what is the culture we want to build’. This was particularly important as the new people we were bringing in were going to outnumber current staff.”
Likening ramping up on staff to the process of “mixing a cocktail” with the a recipe of current and incoming talent, Poesaste also stressed the importance of creative excellence in the face of a sea of processes.
“We had more processes than a McDonald’s drive thru and it was very crowded with making sure all boxes were ticked,” she explained.
However, she said this could never be at the expense of creative excellence – something that was not reserved for creatives alone.
“Even though creative isn’t in everyone’s job title, it’s everyone’s responsibility,” she said.
Poesaste also said carving out weekly time to review and debate creative work is vital, with these team sessions proving key to sparking fresh ideas.
Also on the panel, Georgie Bugelly, group head of agency services at Asahi’s 1House agency, spoke about rapid growth in in-housing and keeping up with copious briefs, but also the importance of attaching real goals around external recognition, which for them meant entering industry awards.
On the ‘Creative Excellence Unlocked’ panel, former head of creative excellence at Telstra, now head of brand Westpac, Anna Jackson, and Adam Ledbury, global creative director APAC at Uber, also spoke about having time to reflect on work created, pause, and to thank partners after projects wrap.
Tasked with creating an environment where effective creativity can flourish, Ledbury explained how his global role varies from region to region. While he may be light touch in an area like Australia, he could take on more of a hands on job in an area like India, having to dial up or down his role.
Brief Tight to Let Creativity Get Loose
Jackson stressed how all roads must lead back to excellent briefing, citing Better Briefs, an advisory and training business that helps marketers improve the quality of their briefs and realise more impactful ideas.
“The brief should be as tight as possible, almost like the strategic scaffolding to guide what’s right in terms of creative,” she said.
Adding that “happy chickens lay good eggs”, Jackson said the teams have to be on the same page as to what great creativity looks like.
Ledbury agreed on the need for mutual ambition, adding that creativity is one of the only real business advantages left, which is why removing fear from the creative process is also the ultimate goal.
“Fear of failure can be absolutely paralysing,” he said.
“We love ticking the boxes and we love a bit of best practice but that is really just a crutch, you have to remove that fear of failure.”
Sexy In, Grunt Out
In a solo address on ‘How an In-house Powerhouse Reignited a Challenger’, CMO at insurer Youi, Angela Greenwood, shared details of its in-house agency which is made up for 14 people in creative and 15 in media.
As one of Australia’s OG in-house teams spanning the full marketing mix from strategy to media to creative and beyond, Greenwood filled the audience in on the multi-year journey of the Sunshine Coast-based team.
“In terms of my day to day routine, it’s making sure that I’m looking at the stuff upstream and being comfortable with it so that then all the wonderful things that need to happen downstream can just happen,” she said.
“As a c-suite leader in any organisation you can succeed for your team if you can see icebergs coming and can steer away from them.”
With “zero distance to data”, it’s also the closeness to the data and insights that helps the team move with velocity and confidence, as well as core to the in-house agency’s success is empowerment.
With a mantra to “keep the sexy in house and outsource the grunt work”, tips for others on an in-housing journey, included creating the conditions for greatness to happen, owning your narrative and to be best friends with your sales team.
