When In-House Ad Campaigns Go Awry Your brand is your largest intangible asset, and having a capable in-house team to manage it and execute your marketing plan is essential for any organization. In fact, if you’re a publicly traded corporation and you’ve outsourced all your brand knowledge to an external agency, you’ve created an unnecessary risk. This risk, combined with the cost-effectiveness of AI, the growth of internal data capabilities, the agility required for social media, and the increasing focus on employer branding, has fueled the trend toward larger in-house teams.
For the most part, this is a positive development. You should know your brand better than anyone—but you must also be unafraid to confront your reflection. That reflection can come from the general public, social media trolls, or your customers—the risky route taken by brands like Apple, Jaguar, Google, and Bumble in 2024.
If you haven’t seen the stumbles from these in-house teams, here’s a quick summary: Four major brands, four epic mistakes—all within a single year. And notably, even Apple, which has historically been adept at reading the cultural room, stumbled. You could attribute these errors to the rise of social media trolls, the experimental use of AI in creative processes, or the heightened public sensitivity in an election year.
But at their core, these failures illustrate the challenges of self-reflection without external input. Here’s where Socrates offers some timeless wis.