What a Successful In-House Creative Culture Looks Like – Including Insider Tips for How to Build Your Own

“Culture has the single greatest impact on an agency’s bottom line,” says Ephraim Gerard Cruz, former Director of Operations at Xfinity Creative in New York. 

Fostering a creative culture is important for the long-term success of any in-house agency or creative operations. But this is also one of the biggest potential pitfalls for brands seeking to in-house creative – because they tend to underestimate both how important it is and how difficult it can be to achieve.

This is a crucial point raised in ISBA’s State of ‘In-housing’ Report 2023, which shows that the creatives surveyed lack trust in their companies’ “ability to create a culture of creativity”.

The report also claims that the erosion of “positive energy and culture” over time is a key reason why many in-house agencies deteriorate, concluding: “It’s no wonder many brands don’t feel they have achieved the greater control expected from in-housing.” 

This article uses material from interviews with creative heads and CMOs at leading UK brands with in-house creative operations to dig beneath the surface. We analyse what a creative culture is and its benefits, before highlighting some insider tips on how to build your own.

Defining creative culture 

At its most basic, a creative culture is one where creatives feel confident in their ability to be creative. But there’s more to it than that.

“Make sure you allow everyone in the company to be and feel creative, and to be a stakeholder in the creative process,” says Kyle Rowe, Managing Director at Boots Opticians. “Encourage them to mix with your creative talent and look at being more creative when it comes to problem solving.”

Keith Gulliver, Brand & Marketing Leader at TSB, agrees, saying that a creative culture encourages collaboration between creatives and the rest of the business. “In that sense my job is to wake the company up to the opportunity of creative capability, not narrow-mindedly thinking that creativity is restricted to the creatives. Fostering creative capabilities is super important because of the business benefits of thinking differently.”

Benefits of creative culture 

So, what are the business benefits of a creative culture? 

For Ivan Pols, Chief Creative Officer at what3words, it is “fundamentally important to the long-term health and value of a business” because creative cultures “are more innovative”.

Other benefits highlighted by our interviewees include: 

• Higher-quality creative work for a more competitive price 

• Easier to attract quality creative talent (see our previous article, ‘How to attract

  top-tier creative talent for your in-house creative operations’)

• Higher staff retention – because creatives feel more challenged and fulfilled 

• Lower operating costs – due to lower staff churn 

• A more innovative organisation that gets used to solving business problems more creatively. 

As Ephraim Gerard Cruz says, all of this goes right to the bottom line. But how can brands build their own creative culture? We asked our insiders for their tips. 

Seven insider tips for building your own creative culture 

1. Start with strong leadership 

Boots CMO Pete Markey says: “You give it to someone who can run an agency, who has the right background, the right drive and passion, enthusiasm, and can run it with the same rigour [as an external agency].” 

2. Test and measure 

Creativity is important, but you also need it to be effective. “It makes sense to bring in a culture of exploration and testing,” says Kyle Rowe. “Make sure your people have the ability to experiment and test on a small scale before going public.” 

3. Prove the value of creative to the rest of the business 

Ivan Pols says that, by situating what3words’ creative studio in the middle of the company’s London office, developers and managers can walk past at any time and see screens filled with video or images of the work they’re doing.

This is to prove the value of the work being done, as well as helping people feel like they have a stake in it. As Ivan says: “It's a key part of our culture to see the company’s story beautifully told, to make it manifest and then push it out into the world.”

The lesson here is clear: prove the value of creative to earn the respect of the rest of the business. 

4. Encourage more transparency

Another way to earn that respect is more counterintuitive – to open yourself up to more criticism by being more transparent and encouraging feedback from non-creatives.

“Early on as the marketing team and studio grew, we invited everyone in,” says Ivan. “Open documents, open scripts, open video channels, open Slack channels to anyone who wanted to have a poke around. There’s no hiding away. The CEO may open any script and give feedback. That took a while to figure out how to take feedback as a maker, but also when and how to give feedback as a marketing director or sales director.” 

5. Create a close alignment between the business and creative 

The head of creative operations at a high-end London-based property firm agrees on the importance of communication, though for her it goes the other way.

“As I say to my team, we’re here partly to translate briefs into creative language,” she says. “We can’t negotiate with buyers and sellers or work out how to convert an office block into student accommodation. That’s what the partners do, and in return they need us to turn their requests into effective creative.” 

6. Keep the creatives physically close to the rest of the business 

Locating the studio where the rest of the business can see it is key.

“I love that thought, that in-housing brings the creative craft closer and makes it less mysterious,” says Pete at Boots. “I think when you when you’ve got people sat alongside you doing the work, it makes it way more accessible.

“The B-Hive studio in Nottingham is brilliant. You go down and you can see photos being done for the gift guide and stuff, and you can feel like you're living and breathing in Christmas. You wouldn’t get that otherwise. Having that proximity is amazing.”

7. Stay flexible

In the end, flexibility is one of the keys to success. Pete emphasises this when he talks about the Boots creative ecosystem of using internal agency The B-Hive for content and social, Oliver in-house agency for brand visual identity and install, and WPP agency Hogarth for above-the-line production. “We thought we could make briefing faster and execution speedier, and I think that’s largely been borne out,” he says.

For Kyle, successful in-housing is all about pursuing a hybrid model. He did this while leading a rebrand at ScS, with a core in-house marketing team that was responsible “for strategy, research, digital and media planning and buying. We augmented their capability with an external creative strategy agency for the research and design elements. Then we worked with a couple of media agencies on the execution.” 

As Kyle puts it: “The flexibility of that hybrid model increases your chances of success because it allows you to scale and only increase your costs when you really need to.” 

To learn more about Agency Inside, contact Chris Ward at cward@therivergroup.co.uk.