“Currently, there’s much more creative done in house than media. But I do think that media is absolutely increasing,” the Group EVP says in this Beet.TV interview at the recent Association of National Advertisers’ In-House Agency Conference.

“In-housing is raging,” he adds.

He cites three ANA member surveys that show “the penetration of in-house agencies skyrocket” to 78% from 42% in 2008. Meanwhile, the in-house workload has continued to build, with 90% of survey respondents with an in-house agency citing an increase and two-thirds of those say “it’s increasing a lot,” Duggan says.

Social media was an obvious candidate for in-housing because of the quick turnaround times it requires. It’s been joined by programmatic media, influencer marketing “and all sorts of creative. Marketers these days have the need for much, much more content than they’ve ever needed before done at a faster pace,” ranging from Internet video high-end television commercials.

Despite some of its complexities, media is seen as “the next frontier posed for rapid growth in-house” but with limitations. “I don’t think the day will come where there’s a lot of client-side marketers negotiating their own television deals with the networks because certainly the big agency holding companies have that clout,” Duggan notes.

One incentive for bringing some media in-house is so that marketers can keep an eye on their first-party data, according to Duggan.

In-housing advertising and media has always been about cost and speed. Along the way, marketers have gotten better at recruiting and nurturing talent. “That has been a debate in the industry and a knock on in-house agencies that they don’t have the talent that external agencies have, but I do believe that’s changing.”

Just how busy are some in-house teams? Duggan observes that conference speakers mentioned handling anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 projects a year.

There is still a balance to be achieved by using internal and external resources. Two participants referenced establishing “swim lanes” so that “they can both live happily together and optimize the work.”

This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the ANA In-House Agency Conference. This series is sponsored by Extreme Reach. For more videos please visit this page.

That report kickstarted a cacophony of “transparency” talk, including the ANA issuing a series of recommended solutions.

Since then, chatter from industry folk is that things have improved, though not as much as may be desired.

For ANA group EVP Bill Duggan, progress has been made on brands’ agency contracts, auditing and programmatic buying.

“It’s been sort of a slow build,” he say sin this video interview with Beet.TV, “but we’ve been hearing increasingly from our members that they’ve been looking harder at their contracts.

A great time to look at contracts is during media pitches. What we’ve learned is that, among our members that have taken some action regarding the rebates, that 60% have taken action around agency contracts.”

Whilst the first report focused on agency buying behaviour, the latest area of transparency concern is emerging as the production of creative assets.

This summer, ANA issued a report on that topic, finding issues around whether agencies disclose the use of either in-house or commissioned creative producers.

“The production unit that may be doing some business for that client (may be) part of the agency, but the client may not know that,” Duggan adds. “Equally troubling is the fact that there are cases where those internal production units are competing against external independent editors.

“All those relationships need to be disclosed. And if there is a case where an internal agency unit is being considered, those bits (must not) initially go through the agency producer. They need to go through either a third party cost consultant or directly to the client.”