INSIGHTS

November 6, 2026

In 2003 I learned what a producer's job really is: not following the process, but knowing it well enough to adapt it when the work gets better.

November 4, 2026

Most teams treat freelancers as a fix. The best treat them as part of their capacity plan. Here's how a bench built ahead of time let us staff a last-minute brand reinvention in two business days, how to cast it well, and the weekly habit that makes it possible.

November 3, 2026

These are the ten questions I ask any marketing team before anything else. Most leaders can answer a few easily. The ones that are hard to answer are usually where the work is getting stuck, and where the biggest savings tend to be.

October 30, 2026

In 1998, standing in Times Square, I didn’t see channels or departments. I saw brands. Customers still see you that way, but many marketing departments are built by channel, and often nobody sees the whole.

October 28, 2026

Most in-house versus agency decisions happen one request at a time. Three simple questions help decide which work to bring in, and which to send to partners.

October 26, 2026

Replacing a partner mid-project is sometimes the right call, but it’s never cheap. Before a brand calls an agency review, it should make sure the agency is really the problem.

October 23, 2026

A brand’s comeback campaign was planned as three shoot days and one TV spot. Rebuilt as one day with a second unit, it delivered 200 pieces of content and more money for media.

October 21, 2026

A statement of work decides most of a project's outcome before any work begins. Here's what a good one includes, explained through my own kitchen renovation.

October 19, 2026

When budgets get tight, money drifts toward what's easy to measure. But cutting brand building slowly drains the demand that performance marketing depends on.

October 16, 2026

Small, senior agencies are winning work from much larger shops. Here’s how the three agency models compare, and the one question that matters most when you choose.

October 14, 2026

Whether to build in-house production comes down to two things: doing what's best for the work, and the logistics of how production actually runs.

October 12, 2026

A new question is turning up in agency scopes of work: where are you using AI, and what is it saving us? Here's how brands should ask it, and how agencies should answer.

October 9, 2026

Setting a production budget is the easy part. Deciding where the money goes, based on the idea and the media behind it, is what separates good producers from great ones.

October 7, 2026

This is marketing's third push to bring work in-house, and this time AI is the reason. Before committing, run a pilot that proves the model actually works.

October 5, 2026

You can produce almost anything for almost any amount of money. The skill is knowing where the money actually makes the work better.

October 2, 2026

There are six common ways to structure a brand–agency relationship. None is universally right. The right one depends on your budget, your team and where you're headed.

September 30, 2026

Standing up an in-house agency is the easy part. Getting internal clients to use it is the real job, and it usually takes about six months of earning trust.

September 28, 2026

There's no universal formula for an in-house agency. But on a lean budget, four roles usually come first, and the people in them need to do the work, not just manage it.

September 25, 2026

Marketing budgets are flowing into AI faster than teams can absorb it. The gap isn't the tools. It's the operating model, and four questions most teams skip.

September 23, 2026

When a brand's strategy is already done in-house, a small senior team of creatives and a producer can often deliver faster, and put more of the budget on screen.

September 21, 2026

The real question isn't whether to build in-house or hire an agency. It's which work belongs where, based on your brand, your goals and the kind of work you make.

September 18, 2026

Inside a brand, marketing doesn't operate alone. Every idea has to hold up in several rooms, so the approval path has to be designed, not survived.

September 16, 2026

Most people think triple bidding is about getting the lowest price. Its real job is letting a client compare three independent creative answers before committing.

September 14, 2026

I spent years writing agency estimates before I ever approved one as a client. Here's what that taught me about where the money actually goes.