In the 2010s, this was the trend in the market: the internalization of agency activity by advertisers. While it continued to develop, it did not make the role of agencies obsolete, but pushed them to refocus on consulting.
In the United States, 82% of advertisers in 2023 will have set up an internal team dedicated to media buying, content creation or CRM. A tidal wave compared to the 42% recorded in 2008 by the study of the American Advertisers Association, the ANA. What about across the Atlantic? “Positive contamination continues, it affects approximately one in two French advertisers”believes Fabrice Valmier, co-director of the VTScan group, which recently formalized a dedicated offering, VT Modèles.
Internalization, but not at any price
Club Med is one of the French brands that has taken the plunge. The tourism company began its internalization in 2019, and its team of 15 people now carries out all its performance-based media purchasing operations (SEA, display acquisition and social), or 60% of its media mix. An organization that brings “a significant ROI thanks to the elimination of monthly agency fees, the reduction of intermediaries in our media operations, and better performance enabled by the more precise management of our campaigns”says Géraldine Hammer, head of media Europe & Africa at Club Med.
She acknowledges, however, that the operation is not judicious in all cases. For example, the company retains an agency for its offline media buying – and has no plans to internalize it – because of the strategic support provided and the volume of campaigns. “There has to be a certain threshold for internalization to be effective,” she believes. And above all, “You shouldn’t just get started with the idea of saving on agency fees”says Géraldine Hammer.
A new role for agencies
Because internalization does not mean the end of collaboration with an agency. At Club Med, the implementation of the internal agency was supported by Agence 79, which then kept its top-of-funnel media investments (branding in offline media in particular), then this budget was recovered by the Mediakeys agency, which also plays a consulting role on the bottom-of-funnel part. It is yet another agency, Jellyfish, which has just carried out an audit to assess the effectiveness of internalization at Club Med. “We have not cut ties with the agencies, that is not the goal”explains Géraldine Hammer.
She now believes that she has with her agencies “a peer-to-peer relationship in which we have exchanges around strategic reflections”. On the agency side, “This encourages them to meet on the board in advance”adds Fabrice Valmier. Another possibility for them: “investing massively in technologies to bring productivity to advertisers” ; this is what prompted a retail advertiser supported by VT Scan to re-outsource its video content production to an agency promising 50% savings thanks to AI. “Semantics wrongly lead us to believe that internalization means less money for agencies“summarizes its leader.
Other avenues exist for brands that do not want to or whose model does not lend itself to internalization. This is the case of the placement of profiles with the advertiser, offered by companies such as In Da House, founded by Philippe Bonnet. Former France manager of Wunderman and Rapp, he sources experienced professionals to meet specific technical needs, but can also support advertisers on more strategic needs.
Source: www.e-marketing.fr
