Betting on Balance: What We Got Right About In-House Agencies

Four years ago, Bring It In Media was born out of a pattern we couldn’t unsee. In-house agencies were on the rise, touted as faster, smarter, and more brand-savvy alternatives to traditional agencies. But we had a front-row seat to what most people missed: many were being built too big, too top-heavy, or too small, and often without a clear-eyed understanding of what working inside a brand actually requires. 

Today, we’re watching the inevitable course correction. Several well-known in-house agencies have folded or downsized in the past few years. We won’t name names, but we watched one in-house agency scale too big, too fast. The warning signs were there from the start. We reached out — more than once — to offer our support and services. No response. 

Now, four years later, the entire department has been dissolved.  

The reason isn’t always about budget cuts or talent loss; it’s often about structure. In-house doesn’t mean building a replica of an external agency and plopping it inside a corporate org chart. The rules are different. The expectations are different. And if you don’t build with balance, you break. Growth is only sustainable when it’s intentional.

And when you ignore the signals, the cost isn’t just operational — it’s cultural.  

We’ve seen what works. We’ve also seen what doesn’t. And we’re here to help teams get it right before they hit the breaking point. 

We believe in the right people. A talented team that knows how to collaborate cross-functionally, who can wear the hats that matter and take them off when they don’t. We’ve seen firsthand how a team of five deeply embedded creatives can outperform a team of 30 at an outside agency.  

Because what works in-house isn’t always louder, it’s smarter. 

There’s also a common misconception that in-house teams should keep the fast-turn, Tier 2 or Tier 3 work, while the ‘real’ creative, the Tier 1 work, goes out to the big, flashy agencies. But we’ve seen the opposite prove true: some of the boldest, most effective brand work has come from inside. From people who live the brand every day. People who know the briefs (and write them sometimes) before they’re even a project. Who understands the nuance of stakeholders, approvals, timelines, and REAL budgets (not irresponsible ones). When you bet on the right internal talent, you don’t just get great work, you build brand consistency, creative confidence, and long-term equity. 

That doesn’t mean everything stays in. Smart in-house leadership knows when to call in outside help, for perspective, for specialty, or just for bandwidth (which, let’s be clear, is also a lot of the time). But building with intention means you don’t outsource blindly. You build an internal engine that works, and then you choose what to scale, not what to surrender. 

At Bring It In Media, we don’t chase trends, but we do have an uncanny way of predicting them. We build for what brands actually need. And what they need, now more than ever, is balance: the right team, with the right focus, at the right size. It’s not sexy. But it works. And we’ve got years of proof to show for it.