The Great Recession began in the US in December 2007, with signs of economic trouble visible for a while as the housing bubble burst and rising default rates threatened mortgage-backed securities. We’ve looked back at our coverage of ad spending during that time period for guidance on what to expect now that a pandemic has forced a significant economic slowdown, with financial markets panicking.

That’s consistent with The Economist/YouGov polling in August 2020, where 30% of Hispanics acknowledged having trouble paying rent, mortgage, utilities, and other housing costs. Keeping up with rent has been tough for young Hispanic adults, and 31% of 18- to 36-year-olds in GenForward’s June 2020 polling said the pandemic “made it challenging” to pay that bill. Food costs have also been problematic.

Some marketers are taking control of their campaigns by in-housing various advertising services such as ad creative, social and search.

A smart approach to the growing trend

As the relationship between brands and their partner agencies continues to evolve, more brands are looking to bring projects in-house, citing cost as a factor. For Cars.com, however, bringing digital media buying in-house was primarily motivated by the desire to have more control over data, though cost was another consideration.

An ANA survey indicates that cost savings are why most brands turn to in-housing. While other in-housing benefits are nice, the research shows that they are often ancillary.

Shrinking media budgets, aggressive growth goals and ever-complex marketing needs are causing a shift in the brand-agency relationship. In their bid for self-preservation, brands are streamlining spending and in-housing capabilities.

eMarketer principal analyst Jillian Ryan decodes the complicated and evolving relationship between brand marketers and their agency partners. She previews her upcoming report on this topic and covers areas including in-housing, audits and why agencies continue to be relevant.

Consumer scores will be used to dictate whether people get jobs, housing, medical care, admission to a university, whether you can return a product, how long you’re going to wait on hold for customer service, how you’re treated by companies, how you’re treated by landlords.”

Greater mindfulness about consumer data leads advertisers to consider in-housing

“I really think with racial equity being at the center of Biden's policymaking, that clearly any technologies that perpetuate discrimination in housing, employment, healthcare, and criminal justice will be evaluated quite closely,” Turner Lee of Brookings said.

Rapid urbanization has led to major housing shortages across Latin America as people continue to migrate from rural areas to densely populated urban centers. As local governments struggle to provide new residents with adequate housing, shanty towns have continued to grow in size on the periphery of many cities.

That’s consistent with The Economist/YouGov polling in August 2020, where 30% of Hispanics acknowledged having trouble paying rent, mortgage, utilities, and other housing costs. Keeping up with rent has been tough for young Hispanic adults, and 31% of 18- to 36-year-olds in GenForward’s June 2020 polling said the pandemic “made it challenging” to pay that bill. Food costs have also been problematic.

For example, the combination of housing and healthcare accounts for half of total spending by households in the lowest income quintile, while consuming little more than one-third of total expenditures by the top quintile.

Forces continue to push and pull in both directions—for example, as take rates continue to fall for commoditized services, some advertisers look to managed services (with higher fees) to support their in-housing efforts or pandemic-related planning.

In the long-term, agency-side layoffs are likely to accelerate the trend of in-housing among brands. Companies are already increasingly pulling their advertising in-house: Some examples include L'Oreal, which has taken a partially in-house and partially managed approach, and PepsiCo.

“If someone is buying into a housing market after it’s been climbing for the last seven years going on eight years now, that means they’re paying much more to get in,” Zillow’s Tucker said. Of course, trouble assembling a down payment reflects an underlying problem: Many millennials just don’t make enough money.

Flexible Engagement Models: In-Housing, Outsourcing and Everything in Between. Once brands complete a gaps and overlaps assessment, they often start to consider in-housing select marketing capabilities. But it’s important to note that in-housing is not a binary, all-or-nothing act—it’s a term with much gray area that often exists across a spectrum of engagement models. Brands Take Work In-House.

First, the IAB defines full in-housing as a situation where “the ad-serving tech stack is owned and/or operated by the brand and integrated with media strategy … [and other] internal functions.” The IAB emphasizes that this is “atypical” because of the resources it requires. Second, the IAB acknowledges that survey respondents may have interpreted in-housing slightly differently.

In-housing is on the rise, as advertisers become familiar with programmatic trading and seek greater control. For brands, bringing programmatic display buying in-house is one of the most obvious ways to increase oversight and fine-tune ad buying according to the needs of specific campaigns.

Interestingly, neither survey asked about in-housing from a customer experience, data management or analytical standpoint. But for companies to embrace this more holistic type of in-housing, they will need to invest in greater tools, technology and specialized headcount capable of understanding the customer journey both theoretically and practically via data science and analytics.

Another report by Harvard’s JCHS (“Improving America’s Housing 2019”) said homeowners 55 and older “have dominated the home remodeling market for nearly a decade.” Increasing longevity is a factor, as someone who sells a much-loved home at age 65 could easily spend the next 20 years regretting it.