In-House vs. External: Crafting the Ultimate Marketing Ecosystem

Intro VO  00:06

Welcome to revenue rehab, your one stop destination for collective solutions to the biggest challenges faced by marketing leaders today. Now head on over to the couch, make yourself comfortable and get ready to change the way you approach revenue. Leading your recovery is modern marketer, author, speaker and Chief Operating Officer at Tegrita Brandi Starr

Brandi Starr  00:34

Hello Hello Hello and welcome to another episode of revenue rehab. I am your host Brandi Starr. And we have another amazing episode for you today. I am joined by Casper SEER slough Casper has more than 20 years of experience in the advertising industry, and quite a few creative awards for his work. He has written two best selling books and works with international big brands such as Apple, Lego and Mars. Casper has built and directed the in house creative departments at marecic George Jetson and sesco Bank and has helped other organizations and brands set up their team. Kasper, welcome to revenue rehab, your session begins now.

Kasper Sierslev  01:22

Thank you. Thank you so much, Brandy, and thank you for having me.

Brandi Starr  01:28

I'm excited to have you today. Looking forward to talking to you. But before we jump into our topic, I like to break the ice with a little woosah moment that I call buzzword. banishment. So tell me what buzzword would you like to get rid of forever?

Kasper Sierslev  01:48

Oh, it's, it's a love hate thing. But I really hate the word agile. And at the same time, I kind of like the way you could actually work with it. It's just the word and the whole, yeah, agile ness of everything. And we have to be flexible and so on. But yeah, that's that's I think that's the one.

Brandi Starr  02:09

I am with you on that one. I love the Agile principles. And we use the approach but I do think it is a word that gets overused in how are we being agile is this agile? And it's, you know, I think it's the big A versus little a and agile but for at least for this discussion, we'll put that in the box throw away, can you we won't talk about being agile. Well, now that we have gotten that off our chest, tell me what brings you to revenue rehab today?

Kasper Sierslev  02:43

Well, basically, it's talking about in house agencies and how we can work with creativity in in house agencies and but also actually look at how we can shape the workflows and how we work in house because a lot of things I've learned at the external side are a long time ago, never quite made it to the in house agencies. So it's a lot about processes that that actually, when you look at it allow us to be more creative work in a different way with in house agencies and not by just being part of an marketing department. So long, long story to get to the point. Sorry,

Brandi Starr  03:26

I love it. And we have tackled the in house versus external a few times on revenue rehab. So for everyone listening, after our conversation with Casper go back to episodes 44 and 82. Those were good places where we also dived into this debate, because I think everybody has a different perspective. And I know you've got a strong one on the in house side of things. So I'm looking forward to diving into that. But first, I believe in setting intentions, it gives us focus, it gives us purpose, and most important It gives our audience and understanding of what they should expect from our discussion today. So what's your best intention? What would you like people to take away from our discussion?

Kasper Sierslev  04:12

Well, first of all, I would like to ask to take away that it's not about either or. So the latest book, and I'm not going to do the promotion is called Win Win house. So it's about both sides is taking the best from external agencies and from in house and when you have some kind of in house setup, look at where does it make sense to have it in house? And where should you bring in the rockstars, the experts, the specialist and so on, because you can do both. So so that's the takeaway. Go back and look at how your setup is really made who who's doing what where does it make sense to have people in house perfect.

Brandi Starr  04:52

And so that gives me a good place to start to dive in because I am of the same mindset that it is not Got an either or it is a both. And it is always figuring out where that is best identified. And so starting with some of the key points that, you know, I've talked about here on the couch before, some of the common thought processes are, you know that your core expertise and subject matter experts, like your leaders, some of those core things, you really need people to do the subject matter experts, those are the things that you need to maintain in house, and that you outsource for the gaps and for the scale, and for those specific experiences. And so that's kind of, you know, summarizing a couple of talks I've had on this, I'd like your perspective on, you know, just kind of that basic foundation of what stays internal versus what goes external, before I start to dive a little deeper?

Kasper Sierslev  05:53

Well, I think so. I mean, having the brand knowledge, the product knowledge and so on, that makes a lot of sense to have to have the more technical the content writers in house, for instance, so you have the creative part, doing content, everyday content, working with the systems, tools, brand platforms, and such that you have, that also makes a lot of sense to have in house. But you know, if you need to reach out to a certain certain audience somewhere else, it makes a lot of sense to actually go out and find those experts have you need to some brand new outside in perspective, it makes a lot of sense to call in the creatives that work with a lot of different brands at the same time. So it's very much about you know, figuring out are you doing this a lot is it doesn't make sense, it sounds very easy it is but to bring those those people in because you use them that's much it, it gets you much faster. From a starting point, if you just if you don't need to write that entire brief, especially when you work with complex products or markets. So I mean, if I used to work at an investment bank, or actually was a FinTech, and try to explain to an external agency, how to deal with a futures and options and so on, took forever. So it's that kind of stuff, where you had internal copywriters who actually understood what the product was and how to frame it made a lot of sense. But we also made the big mistake sometimes of being too internal, forgetting that people didn't knew what we knew. So So you have to have that, you know, outside in perspective, somebody coming in and say, yeah, that's, that's fine. But nobody talks like that, in the real world, or something like so. So I think it's that balance. That's, that's interesting. So normally, I would say your content, everyday content, your, your graphic designers, your your web managers, and so on, where it's a systems and tool about magic knowledge, where you can adjust easily, you can also, you know, have a kind of a learning loop, when you have a hypothesis on something you post, you very easy gets feedback on what you're doing. And you can adjust to it. And that's more difficult with an external agency. So I think it's really a balance, but it's a lot of companies are not looking at it. And I think that's the problem.

Brandi Starr  08:27

Yes, I agree completely. And so, you know, there's obviously the financial cost benefit that happens. And, you know, that kind of is pretty easy to analyze. But I think, you know, you hit on subtly some of those points in terms of what are the benefits and the costs? You know, you talked about it taking longer if you know, you needed to outsource certain things that are related to industry knowledge, but then that also creates blind spots. So talk a bit about the, you know, cost and benefits of both approaches outside of the financial.

Kasper Sierslev  09:09

Yeah, because the financial side, I think, we did a big analysis last year. And both sides, I mean, the pro in house and the pro external says this is the cheapest model. So, it really depends on where you how to cut the cake, so to speak. So apart from the financials, I think it makes sense when you when you combine things, so for instance, when we are doing bigger things in the agencies that we run, we bring in the external creative people that have that outside in perspective are more senior, and we put them in the same room as the internal team that knows the brand guidelines, the tone of voice and so on. So we have someone you know, pushing the envelope a bit, but we also have someone keeping it holding it back and say that's not how we talk here and so on. So doing the creative work in that, in the same room, and I really talked about, for me, it's a lot about the idea itself. So if you're doing a campaign or, or something like that, really keep it at an idea level. So almost, I always say, like black ink and white paper, if you can draw it and write it on a, on a piece of paper with an ink marker. And people understand it. And it's great. I'm sure it will be great when you bring in Industrial Light and Magic? And do you have the photographers and everyone so, so, so so? Well, I think the idea is to to, to put people together, so have that outside in perspective mixed with the internal team that knows the brand, and the stories and so on. That's how you can start a process very, very easy. That's, I think that's that's my, one of my takeaways is to try to mix it and don't do that much either or so you brief an external agency, and then they come back with something that doesn't fit your platform or your tools or the way that you're normally doing doing it.

Brandi Starr  11:08

Yeah,that collaborative approach, it almost creates a system of checks and balances where, you know, you're not staying and I know, inside and outside the box is an overused term that I think's been banished at some point. But you're not saying to inside the box with the people that you know, know the brand inside now, you've still got someone to push the envelope. But that balance, and I like that sort of yin and yang balance of internal versus external. Because I do think that that is like where we win is finding what that blend is. And I know you talked a bit at the beginning about you know, those inside resources and the internal agencies, so to speak, of what they can learn from the third parties. What I would have liked to hear a little bit more, because I think that ties to some of the costs and benefits as well, in terms of how things are run. I'd love to hear more of your thoughts around, you know, what are the gaps in those internal agencies where they can learn from some of those external places,

Kasper Sierslev  12:20

I think some of the places I've been working with some of the companies I've worked with, the problem is often that things are too mixed. So sometimes you need that, I don't know, it's not that vogue to say that diva thing where you say, I can't work with it, and I walk away. And that's really difficult if you have to go down and have lunch right after because you're in the same meeting room, same, you know, office space, so So sometimes you need to be that kind of external and say this is the best way to do it. And what we see a lot when we talk with different companies is that they can take the kind of mix things up. So they have the graphic designers and copywriters sitting in the middle of the marketing department, and people can just walk over and say, Oh, could you fix this? So you don't get that proper brief? And you're not allowed to really, you know, take a step back and see saying, is this actually the right solution for this? Is there another way that I can do that? Because it's, it's more like going around and just say, oh, let's fix this and do that? And can you write a small copy for this one, and so on. So the first thing we normally do when we work with companies is to say, Have you have do you have your your processes, your roles and responsibilities, your swim lanes, all the boring stuff that actually allows you to optimize a bit on the processes. And it sounds maybe counterintuitive, but when you have really strict swim lanes of who's doing what when, then you can also allocate more time to the creative phase of things, the initial phase where you actually have come up with ideas because all the rest is the same. I mean, you don't have to invent a new way to do a banner or so many posts or, or translate something that's that's just work or processes or, or so. So a lot of times people don't really have this an order, they they just work and they just bring in experts, and they sit them next to the to the other guys in the marketing department and expect them to do what they did at the agency. So it is about looking at the flows you have an ad because the advertising agencies we we used to work a lot in flows and boxes and you have a project manager coming with a brief and say you guys you work on this and this is bring it on to the next the next table so to speak very much like an assembly line. And it it actually works because it's difficult to make money on advertising yourself by the hour and and how much does an idea actually cost so Want. So so you can learn? I think a lot from from that process from looking at how would would we like the different content pieces or campaigns to run through our marketing machine?

Brandi Starr  15:12

Yeah, and I agree that processes is really key I know, that's something that we've worked with clients on quite a bit is, you know, as an external agency, we are, like, helping them to define like, this is what the process needs to look like whether we're involved or not. And we've seen that where people are like, Hey, you guys operate really efficiency, you know, efficiently when we work with you. There's like this rigid process, there's documentation, there's all these things, how do we get that, you know, on the internal side, as well. And so I do think that that process, and rigor that comes behind, you know, how things are getting done is a great place where if you don't have that internally, it's kind of a cost of holding things inside, because you don't have that. Whereas it is a benefit in that you can really put those together so that you've got a seamless process. And that I agree is another way that you're winning in that blended ecosystem is to bring some of that rigor internal as well. I

Kasper Sierslev  16:19

mean, yeah, what what we see is when people, you know, put processes in place, and we don't have to be involved, that could be someone to just, you know, you know, got an advice somewhere, I've built them themselves, they normally save 30 to 40%, or they gain 30 to 40% in efficiency in what they're doing, because they're not going back once they created the film all the banners and going back and saying maybe blue is better, or something like that, because they decide things at the right time. And I think that's, that's very important. Another thing that I see is it, in contrary to the external agencies, a lot of the inside agencies has more tasks on the plate, so they're producing more, that means they're shorter time to actually step back and, and look at what you're actually doing, you're more in the production mode, say, Okay, I need 10 social social media posts in the next two hours, let's just type something else, or use the chat to the tee to help me out or something like that, you know, so where the creative agency often takes, you know, just a couple of hours, maybe go out and take a walk, and so on, and look for inspiration. And I'm not saying that I love I have this quote from from a guy called Chuck crew, close, who used to say, inspiration is for amateurs, the rest of us go to work. And actually, I really like that, because working with in house, you don't have that much time. So you just have to figure out a way to come up with all those ideas, sit down, start start creating, and then your inspiration will come later on, you can't, you cannot just sit and wait for that eureka moment.

Brandi Starr  18:00

And so in thinking, so I'd like to dig into that a little more. So in thinking about how you blend the internal versus external, what what I'm hearing is actually different than what I've seen. So I'd like you to talk about it a little more. Because I know, I have often seen that timelines are faster, and you get a greater scale by tapping into external versus doing things internally. But what I'm hearing from you is that that may be the opposite. Because the there's more pressure on the internal resources to crank things out. Whereas an external agency has the ability to step back and reflect more. So we're so in again, trying to find that balance. Where do you see you sit things when you need to scale versus where you need greater creativity?

Kasper Sierslev  18:58

I think it's because it's two things at the same time, because I think back to the point that it's not really it's hard to make money as an external agency. So you actually have to do a lot at the same time. So the external agencies work on several campaigns. At the same time, you know, the greater teams are often involved in multiple campaigns at different you know, places in the timeline, but at the same time, whether and it's often the bigger things that you're one projects, the the film's have bigger campaigns in such a way as the internal they kind of wrap it when it goes down in the in the tier model, so to speak, where it's more the day to day content, where you have you have aligned on the frame. This is the frame you need to operate within. So often the creative agencies are, you know, shaping the frame shaping the brand message to the overall brand of the campaign idea. And then the internal agencies often work within that framework. So they have to come up with The next product launch within the existing framework. And what I often see is that they have to do more, smaller things faster. So it's not necessarily that they work, I don't think they work harder than external agencies, it's two different things. It's also hard to come up with, with brand new things from blank piece of paper. Sorry. So so it's two different things, I think the external agencies are working on different campaigns at the same time, but they do often have a bit longer timeframe to work within were some of the agencies that we see, they have, like, set aside two or three hours to come up with something, write a blog post in the next two hours, or something like that. So it's, it's a, it's another way, so that it, so they just don't have the time to be, you know, to step back and wait for the inspiration and say, um, I wonder why I feel now because then you, the time is up. So. So that's, that's why I think, you know, it's also different things that we're talking about, when I talk about bringing in the externals, that's, of course, higher up in the hierarchy, breaking, you know, try to make more creative ideas from the in house agencies, so to speak.

Brandi Starr  21:19

Okay, I want to shift gears a little bit. And let's talk about risk. Because risk management is one of those other things that, you know, come up in the debate of in house versus external, you know, the risk are different, you know, again, you can put more pressure on internal resources than you can on an agency. And talk to me a bit me know, you've got data security, you've got intellectual property compliance, risks to timelines. So I'd like to hear your perspective on risk and risk management, when you're keeping things internal versus outsourcing.

Kasper Sierslev  22:05

I mean, it's obviously easier to manage risk internal, because you can make that that loop in the process saying, now it's going through through legal and they can even you know, sometimes when we work with it, let's call it black pen, black, black ink, white paper idea, you can actually send this through legal and say, so this kind of idea. We know, we haven't written up any copy, and we haven't take the photo, do you see any risk in that? So that's more like the overall compliance thing, then, I mean, a lot of times when you work with external agencies, they finish more before they show it to you selected, so you could spend more time on something that's not working, or you're not allowed to say depending of course on where, what kind of business you're you're in. I mean, there's a lot of things here in Europe, very, very regulated. And something that's more easygoing. So it really depends on what kind of business that you're, you're working with. I think there's so many different levels of risk, because you could also have what actually, sometimes it's when you try to build an in house agency, and you bring in more creative people, but they really don't work in that environment, because they used to, I don't know, different settings, then you have the risk of them being complacent and losing their edge and so on. And that's why I think you know, external agencies, you can you can ask for that. I actually think the opposite of you, the external agency, you can put more pressure on you can say, I want this by Monday, I don't really care how you do it, how many people you bring in or how many pizzas you bring to the office? If it's gonna be Monday, right? And then, and then they have to have to scale up, bring in freelancers, and so on. Where internally, it's a bit different, especially in Scandinavia, everywhere from whether it's no, there's a lot of rules on how much you're allowed to work and so on. So, so, and there, it takes more, it's just more difficult to bring in freelancers, in terms of handling them signed NDAs and compliance and working with the same computer systems and yeah, and within your own framework. So I don't know I think I mean, both sides hazard risk and up possibilities and so on. But But of course for for in terms of, of knowing what you're doing and putting it on on the right platforms and knowing you know, you can actually have something live on a certain time because you can easier, you know, you can walk those 50 miles to the legal department and say now you need to look at this. We're And we need to make sure that it's it's it's compliant, that that isn't advantage, I think.

Brandi Starr  25:05

Okay, and you hit on something else that I want to dive into a bit more, and you talked about the talent and, you know, bringing people internal, like, you know that some people do feel like that they kind of lose their edge doing the same thing all the time. So when you are making the decision on what to keep in house versus outsourcing, how do you think about it from a talent development perspective? Like, if you are bringing people in house? How do you keep them fresh and current? And you know, not feeling redundant? Versus if you're, you know, working with external and then I mean, even with external sometimes, you know, if it's the same people on your account for a really long time, like you could run into those same challenges. So what are your thoughts around talent, management and development on both sides of the house?

Kasper Sierslev  26:00

Yeah, I mean, I had that salt, like, I don't know, it's like, it's 12 years ago, when I turned to the dark side and went in house. And so this is the place where creative people go to die. But, but actually, there was a, there's a lot of people, I wouldn't say, like me, but kinda like me is maybe it's the place they are in their life where they, they have kits, so maybe they look for them all stapled work life, but they're still good, they still have some, some great campaigns under their hood, so to speak. So So it's different kinds of people, but it does also for us, it's also a different levels or a lot of the time, so you're not looking for the rockstars. Sometimes you're looking for the craft man's, the workers and so to speak. So that's one thing. And I can think it's not that difficult to attract, I thought it would be but but actually, there's a lot of people who have been in the advertising agency, and also, you know, kind of burnt out and, and want to have, you know, more stable work life, maybe I had, like, I was really only working when I was in advertising agencies on the campaign campaign, the idea, and then it was handed over to someone else. And I like to follow things through and say, Oh, maybe we could do something funny on the website or something like that with this idea. But that wasn't possible when I was in that external agency, because we have to build all the hours very strict. So there's no time to play around on the outskirts of the of the big IDM. So so that's one thing, what we are doing is, is really focusing on the creativity. So we we have monthly sessions where we look at what's the best from from Ken, for instance, the canning line festival, or other advertising festivals, we have external people coming in giving talks about what's going on in films or, or law, for instance, there's a lot of regulation right now about you know, the whole sustainability ESG. So and so what are you allowed to say, maybe that's not that inspirational, but it could be it could be. So that's one thing, I also run a school once a week, where where we bring our people in, I'm not teaching I'm teaching one night, but we have guest teachers from around the world coming in, and teaching on such certain subjects. So we try to bring people back to school and see just showing them cases and says this is how you could do it. And so so try to challenge them in a way. But I mean, it is difficult when you sit there and you have lunch with people every day, the same people every day, and then say, oh, let's try something completely different when it's actually easier to to not do that. So. So I mean, it's easier not to to create that conflict and say, I think I want to try something completely different now. Instead of just doing what you did last time.

Brandi Starr  29:02

Yeah, I know. That's one reason I love being on the consulting side is there isn't that sort of political dynamics. So it is really easy to like, come from way left to say, you know, how about this. But I do think that that does go back to what you talked about in it really being a blended strategy. And I also think it ties as well to just comfort in, you know, the team that you're with and having a really healthy environment that you know, encourages different ideas and dialogue. And I also think that that happens on you know, when you're working with external agencies, like you talked about, sometimes when it comes to like billable hours feeling like you gotta stay focused on you know, just the one task at hand. And I do think that that is also a risk when it comes to outsourcing is in some cases, that mandate For the agency can be so stringent that it does actually stifle creativity. So I do think that that's something that whether you opt to give work, you know, to an internal team, or external or some blend of both is both teams do need to have some creative leeway to be able to ideate and bring new ideas to the table and feel comfortable about that. Yeah.

Kasper Sierslev  30:29

Yeah, I agree. So yeah, that's one thing I actually missed. We do the creative review, which no, I don't see a lot of that in internal agencies, we used to do it a lot at external agencies. So every month, just put whatever you have, um, that also we put everything on the wall? Because it was very old fashioned print? No, I mean, we also printed the digital stuff, but just to put it up and say, does it look aligned to the same brand? Is this good? Why did it go from this idea? It was kind of good to this more boring stuff out here. What was it in the process that made it, you know, turn turn to the worse or something like? So. So also focusing on the on, on the creative culture, in an in house agency. And I think that's, that's what a lot of companies are missing. It's like, they really think they can just bring in experts or creative people and just place them in the marketing department and just say, do your do your magic over here? And that's that, then I think you will lose a long, long game. Awesome.

Brandi Starr  31:32

Well, yeah, this has been a great sort of different flavor of the debate and really focusing on you know, the creatives and where that talent sits. And, you know, talking about our challenges is just the first step and nothing changes, if nothing changes. And so, in traditional therapy, the therapist gives the client some homework, but here at revenue rehab, we like to flip that on its head and ask you to give us some homework. So for the heads of marketing, that are listening, you know, that own the creative resources, and have that struggle of how do we you know, how do I craft the right blend of where my creative resources sit? What would be the first step you would recommend for them? Because I think you hit on a lot of the pros and cons. So where do people start in figuring out what that blend looks like for them?

Kasper Sierslev  32:25

I think they have to look at their entire process. So take maybe sometimes it makes sense to do reverse engineering on the last campaign or something. Like I said, we ended here, how do we get to here? Who did what, when, and so on? And actually, look at that process? How much time that we spent here? Did we go back and forth? who did what? So so that's that's one of the things actually looking at the workflows. And normally you could you could just do one or two bigger workflows for for campaigns. The other thing is looking at, who do we use for what for a lot of the time you buy an entire advertising agency for everything, the full service. So you get both the let's call them rockstars. At the top, who great to do the really great creative work come up with a lot of great ideas, but you also buy the entire house, especially in Europe, it's like that. And maybe sometimes it makes sense for for the CMOS to look at all the CFOs to look at, you know, are we buying too expensive craftsmen at the external agencies instead of just buying the creative people and buying the idea. And then we could actually do it ourselves. We could do more formats, more variations of the same content once we bought that main idea. So that would be my second takeaway, which is I think, choose enough but but but but but really look at what are you buying? Where. So and a lot of times you can buy it, you know, you can buy the really, really, really great creative people. It's not that expensive. I mean, and it's worth it to bring them in and sit with your team and actually do something together. Some of them will, some of them won't work on that way. And then you'll figure out who who wants to do this. And it's fun. I mean, most of the people I know working in marketing, they they chose that because it's fun. Lit if they wanted to look at at at spreadsheets, they would have been accountants or something like that. And I think it's also about bringing the fun back in the marketing department and not just outsource the fun part of it and doing the boring stuff ourselves.

Brandi Starr  34:40

Yeah, so thinking about your takeaway, just to summarize it for those listening it is to reverse engineer your last initiative. So pick something big, identify how you got where you got, who did what what you were outsourcing what you kept inside, and really avoid While you're waiting, what you know was that the best approach, because I do like a lot of the points that you're making around figuring out where each thing should sit, or where each part of the process should sit, but then also really having those places where it is truly collaborative. And that is something I do see that's missing. A lot of times it is something is handed to the external party or chosen to be maintained exclusively internal. But there is some benefit, especially strategically, in having both collaborate together. And I think that that is a really, really great place for everyone to start. Because you know, whether you're questioning your blend of resources or not, it's always good. You know, we're at the end of the year, take an assessment of how things work this year, and figure out what changes you should be making going into the next year. Well, Casper, I have enjoyed our discussion. But that's our time for today. But before we go, tell us how can our audience stay connected with you? And definitely do the shameless plug for the book?

Kasper Sierslev  36:10

Yeah, I haven't here. So we're filming. So it's a win win win house. And that's, that's also the website.com. So you can find me later or you can find me on LinkedIn, I have a very unusual last name. It's only me, my two kids and my father who has it so you can also you can probably Google it and find it. So I think I think that's it. This is the guide for anyone who don't want me involved. We I wrote down everything I learned from working with Merck, and Saxo and Jorgenson about how building in house creative team. So if you don't want anything to do with me, take the playbook and, and use it shamelessly.

Brandi Starr  36:49

Well, awesome. Well, we will make sure to link to both your LinkedIn and the book so that people can connect with you and also continue to learn from you. So wherever you are listening or watching this podcast, check the show notes. We will have those links there for you. Well, Casper, thanks so so much for joining me. I can't believe we are already at the end.

Kasper Sierslev  37:12

Yeah, thank you so much brandy for having me. It was it was fun. I mean, I really love these talks. Even though sometimes you get a bit derailed, but it's really nice talking about all these questions with it. Yeah, in house and marketing. So thank you so much.

Brandi Starr  37:28

Thank you, and thanks everyone else for joining us. I hope that you have enjoyed our discussion. We'll see you next time.

Outro VO  37:37

You've been listening to revenue rehab with your host Brandi Starr. Your session is now over but the learning has just begun. join our mailing list and catch up on all our shows at revenue rehab dot live. We're also on Twitter and Instagram at revenue rehab. This concludes this week's session. We'll see you next week.