Hoorah Digital founder Shaune Jordaan argues that in-housing marketing work is no longer an experiment and that the agency model of the future is hybrid, in a thought-leadership article issued by the agency and published on Bizcommunity on 8 October. The agency sells in-house and hybrid agency set-ups, so the views below are its own and promote its offering.
The argument
Jordaan says some in the South African advertising industry still see in-housing as a threat to agencies, or an experiment brands will abandon, but that international evidence suggests otherwise. She cites Association of National Advertisers research in the US finding that 82% of organisations surveyed operate some form of in-house agency, and says more recent ANA research shows internal agencies increasingly viewed as strategic partners rather than cheap production departments. In many cases, she says, brands build hybrid models where internal teams work with external creative, media, technology and production partners. Her examples include AB InBev’s DraftLine and PepsiCo’s internal content capability.
The useful question, she writes, is what brands should own internally, what should stay external and how the two connect. Always-on content, social, CRM, performance creative, data, localisation and AI-enabled production suit closer integration, she says, while big brand ideas, specialist production, independent strategy and some technology or media may still benefit from outside expertise.
Hoorah’s own track record
Hoorah says it has built internal and hybrid agency models in South Africa and across Africa for several years under its Hoorah Inside offering, for brands including Nestlé, Private Property, Avon, Alexforbes, Heineken Beverages and AB InBev. For AB InBev it says it built DraftLine Africa into an internal agency of about 100 people across 10 African markets, and for Avon it developed the Nova Arcade internal creative studio. There is no standard template, Jordaan says: one company may need a large dedicated studio, another a small specialist team embedded in marketing. The harder problem is the operating model, including how briefs are managed, how creative, media, data and technology connect, who owns creative quality and how brand governance, intellectual property and data are handled.
AI and the risks
Jordaan says AI changes the economics of content production, letting a campaign be adapted into hundreds of variations across audiences, formats, markets and languages, but that it “creates an enormous amount of rubbish if it is not managed properly”. Giving a marketing department generative AI tools does not make it AI-enabled, she writes, and brands still need governance, workflows, creative leadership and clear rules on data and intellectual property. Internal teams build institutional knowledge, have direct access to stakeholders and data, shorten briefing cycles and keep capability when an agency relationship ends, she says, but they can become order-taking departments, lose outside perspective or struggle to attract specialist talent. That is why she believes the strongest model is hybrid.
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