Nupur Dayal As companies brace for economic headwinds, in-house marketing teams are navigating a pivotal transition. What began as a movement toward cost-efficiency is now being tested by inflation, leadership turnover, and shifting business priorities. But instead of folding, many in-house teams are responding with structural reform, strategic focus, and smarter use of resources.
Laurie Schiada, AVP of brand management at Humana, leads The Hive—a 65-person in-house agency tasked with supporting a Fortune 500 health insurer. With over 400 internal stakeholders placing requests in a single quarter, burnout was a looming threat. Her response? Build boundaries. “We created toolkits and templates to let teams self-serve,” she says. “That freed us to focus on strategic creative work, not repetitive tasks.”
At TruStage, a major internal restructuring merged three siloed creative units into one cohesive agency under Beth Ann Mandia. “We moved from reactive to proactive,” she says. That meant not just new workflows, but new hires—strategists, UX designers, and cross-functional thinkers who could elevate the agency’s role beyond production.”
What unites these teams is not flashy work but a commitment to operational resilience. They’re creating systems to scale ideas—not just output. They’re drawing clearer lines around creative scope, protecting their people from unsustainable volume. And increasingly, they’re finding their place as strategic partners, not just internal vendors.
This doesn’t mean agencies are going it alone. Humana still relies on external partners for major TV work. Carnegie has held off on bringing media buying in-house due to complexity. But where they can own the process, they do—and they’re redefining success in the process.
The bottom line –: In-house teams are no longer just a cost-saving convenience. They’re becoming smarter, more strategic, and more selective. Survival depends not on being everything to everyone, but on delivering real business value—consistently, and on their own terms.
