Right-Housing Not In-Housing

One of the joys of the tech and media world is the way it introduces new language. Remember the first time someone told you a product feature was being “sunsetted” or they “reached out” to you? Memorably, someone once offered to “towel down” with us… I never understood that one.

In a 2020 planning meeting last week, Google came out with a brand-new term; “Right-Housing”. To give you some context, we were discussing how the in-housing of some functions was understandable, and even good, for our overall relationship with some clients.

Introducing “Right-Housing”

The in-housing of some functions allows us to focus more closely on strategy, analytics, data insight, cross channel attribution, conversion optimisation and the un-siloing of media, rather than being tied to managing a single media channel day-to-day. In effect, the client was crafting out a service that allowed them to partner with agencies in a way that best suited them and where the most value could be added.

It seems perverse for an agency to reject this “whatever’s best for the customer” approach, and yet many of us instinctively recoil from the in-housing conversation. Instead, it should be embraced as an entirely sensible adult discussion.

Typically, in-housing means that the client takes control of business critical and the day-to-day trading functions and leave their agencies to focus on more innovative areas where they can add greater value. And this is becoming ever more prevalent and understandable in an industry where automation and machine learning is quickly becoming ubiquitous.

That’s where “Right-Housing” comes in. Right-Housing is neither an agency outsource model, or a strictly in-house model – it’s the blend of both best suited to a particular client’s needs and their agency’s capabilities and strengths.

It also needs to be said, contrary to popular opinion, that in-housing is rarely about cost but instead getting the right solution. And if it is just about cost, then perhaps a sensible fee conversation should be had? Alternatively, the client may discover that retaining a talented and adaptable team isn’t as simple or as cheap as the Finance Director was promised.

Finally, agencies tend to dismiss in-housing as cyclical, with businesses struggling to recruit the necessary talent and then outsourcing again. And whilst they might fully outsource again, its more normal that in-housing is followed by partial outsourcing & the initial in-housing move is a step on the journey to the correct end solution for both parties. In other words, Right-Housing.

Right-Housing. You heard it here first.