Business consultancy from The River Group
For the last 31 years The River Group has been at the forefront of publishing and content innovation for blue chip and challenger brands. In that time much has changed in the marketing landscape. The importance of data analysis and customer segmentation. The growth of martech platforms. The power of influencer marketing.
The balance of brand and performance marketing have shaped client marketing and communications. The bottom line: more quality output, delivered in real time, for less budget, with an already overburdened and time-stressed team. The River Group has navigated these challenges together with its clients and gained a reputation as a trusted, commercial as well as creative and strategic partner.
River & Agency Inside
This trust has seen River invited to the board table to consult beyond core creative projects. We have delivered many transformation projects across the years and in 2024 the group decided to consolidate its experience and talent into a formal business consultancy unit called Agency Inside, delivering business transformation powered by The River Group.
Since launch Agency Inside have worked with brands to review product and service portfolios recommending NPD initiatives. It has extensively worked with brands to review and invest in Gen AI platforms to drive cost efficiencies. It has undertaken operational model reviews to restructure and upskill. It has worked with brands to diversify product lines to deliver new income streams, and it has helped developed new and sub-brands to drive international market expansion.
Almost all transformation programmes are born out of a need to consolidate costs. One of the biggest and fastest emerging areas is client creative model in-housing.
Agency Inside specialises in working with brands looking to set-up, scale-up or re-engineer their in-house model.
Whilst change is constant, the need to innovate is constant and the need to continually drive sales and margins is paramount.
With this as a backdrop, Agency Inside is primed to shape the future with brands.
Why in-housing, why now?
Increasing pressure on trading environments. Consumer behaviour driving the need for greater content volume output. A multiple agency portfolio is costly, slow and politically conflicted. To staff the same internal resources at an external agency, a brand would pay on average 36% more for the same team. 60% of CMOs are now planning in-housing. Brands in-housing are seeing savings of between 25% and 44%. In-housing is not a blip, it’s the norm.
A snapshot of in-housing:
Content, social and digital display are the three largest channel output to be in-housed.
36% of CMO’s have had an in-house creative ops model for the last 10 years.
55% of in-house ops models are run through the marketing department.
47% of CMO’s have an in-house model 3 and another 47% have a model 4.
22% of these in-house models serve between 21 – 44 internal stakeholders.
Agency Inside have our own survey data on the pain-points and perceived barriers to in-housing. They are challenges that are easily overcome.
The four stages of Agency Inside
PRODUCTION STUDIO
Executes solutions by producing master artwork and adapts to spec.
CREATIVE STUDIO
Originates design and copy solutions to simple/single-channel briefs, crafts and evolves brand guidelines
CREATIVE AGENCY
Activates big campaign ideas in multiple channels.
Originates and develops tactical campaign ideas.
LEAD AGENCY
Devises brand/campaign/channel strategy.
Originates and develops big campaign ideas.
Brands that have established successful in-house creative operations
Knight Frank
Boots
ARLA
Sainsbury’s
RNLI
Specsavers
Sky
Apple
Mailchimp
Confused.com
Ann Summers
Red Bull
BBC
Shopify
Tesco
RyanAir
Nike
LEGO
Kraft Heinz
Disney
Squarespace
AirBnB
HSBC
E.On
What is Agency Inside?
Agency Inside is a turnkey solution for brands looking to set up or scale up their in-house creative operations. Most brands have a small in-house team of designers doing adaption work.This is a type one model. But how to scale this to fill capacity, upskill to produce more, better quality digital and social communications with agility is what Agency Inside is all about.
Agency Inside IS THE ONLY consultancy in the market that bridges, aligning the board to business casing, to blueprint design to hiring, training and running and in-house creative operations model. Our USP – we will have any organisation up and running with an in-house model, bespoke to their needs within 12-24 months then withdrawing with NO ONGOING MANAGED SERVICE COSTS.
Agency Inside also works with type four in-house models to restructure, drive efficiency, P&L reviews, integration models and system workflow upgrades as well as introduce new skillsets and upskill.
The Agency Inside CEO CMO survey on in-housing creative operations
We asked: “What’s stopping you from in-housing your creative operations?”
Rank each of the following barriers and pain points out of 10 – with 1 being a low concern, and 10 being a high concern and a barrier to in-housing creative operations.
“Barrier concern scores”
My organisation would struggle to keep and motivate top-tier creative talent.
I don’t think I can entice top-tier creative talent to my organisation.
I don’t know how to convince the rest of the C-suite that this will deliver a good ROI.
I work in a sales-led organisation that doesn’t value marketing.
We don’t have a culture that is conducive to fostering and/or motivating top-tier creative talent.
I don’t like the idea of adding a huge capex cost by bringing agency ops in-house.
I’m worried about system integration between an in-house creative operations unit and the rest of the business.
Our operations are too siloed and it would be difficult to break down those organisational barriers.
We don’t have robust workflow systems in place.
I’m hesitant to sever relationships with all external agencies.
I can fire an agency if their work isn’t successful, but I can’t/don’t want to fire my direct employees if they can’t perform.
We’ve been trying to in-house on the cheap and not given it enough resources.
We don’t know whether to do it ourselves, work with a consultancy or find an alternative option.
I’m not sure which agency model to choose.
I don’t know where this sits in the company hierarchy – whether under CMO, procurement or elsewhere.
Is there anything else stopping you from in-housing your creative ops – or from scaling up your in-house operations?
We’ve tried in-housing in the past and been disappointed with the results.
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This is the space to introduce the Services section.
This is the space to introduce the Services section.
This is the space to introduce the Services section.
This is the space to introduce the Services section.
How does it work?
Stage 1: We have a series of workshops for brands at the early stages of consideration of investigation
Stage 2: ‘The Audit’ – thirteen modules to investigate the key areas to plan and bespoke an in-house model for your brand and company.
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Senior stakeholder alignment. Is in-housing business critical? Needs / expectations / KPI’s
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Your current communications eco -system / touchpoints / media channels IS it achieving the KPI’s you set
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Current supplier model make-up, impact of an in-house creative operations unit on agency consolidation
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The desired in-house model required, type 1-4 to deliver on KPI’s
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The P&L demands of the futureproof model. Net zero or revenue generating
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In-house model clients, multiple business units, single client, UK only or international global footprint
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Review of people, skillset, capacity and working procedures. Current and futureproofing. Leading to roles, job descriptions, hiring and training
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Workflow process platforms. Existing and required. Briefing, review and QC protocol
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Artificial intelligence, use case scenarios and improving efficiency and output
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Martech platform, asset management, (DAM) and data integration
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Company culture conducive to set up and sustain an in-house ops model
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In-house model standing. Reputation management and trust to deliver quality, efficiently.
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The in-house model business case, investment RPI model blueprint for board sign off & go-to plan for distil, set up phase
Not all brands require a full 13 module audit, we will agree with you at the start of the process which modules are pertinent to you and undertake a ‘part audit.’
Explore
workshop
Aligning senior stakeholders and the board around the need for in-housing.
Introducing gen AI workshop
Exploring the impact that the right gen AI platforms will have on capacity, output and the economics of an in-house operating model.
The pain points of in-housing workshop
Exploring the potential challenges to in-housing in your organisation.
The planning and process of in-housing workshop
Exploring the considerations for, and how to plan and build, your in-house model.
Building a culture for in-housing workshop
Exploring how to harness or nurture a culture conducive to hiring and retaining creative talent.
Managing social media influencers in-house workshop
Exploring how best to source and manage social influencers.
Stage 3: The distil phase, where we build the model, staff it and train.
Stage 4: The deploy stage where we run the model with you for 3 – 6 – 12 months until you are happy to take over the running of the model.