---
title: "The great restructure: Which agency model actually works?"
description: "A marketing panel explores whether in‑house teams, specialist ecosystems or embedded agencies truly cut costs, protect first‑party data and unlock integration and AI for better campaign performance."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "Sponsored Content"
author: "eatbigfish Africa"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/eatbigfish-africa/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-08-21-the-great-restructure-which-agency-model-actually-works/"
published: "2026-08-21T04:00:00"
updated: "2026-08-21T07:03:01"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 1715
---

# The great restructure: Which agency model actually works?

> A marketing panel explores whether in‑house teams, specialist ecosystems or embedded agencies truly cut costs, protect first‑party data and unlock integration and AI for better campaign performance.

By eatbigfish Africa · Published 21 August 2026, 06:00 SAST · Updated 21 August 2026, 09:03 SAST

## Content

There was a time when one agency did it all, holding the brand from brief through to broadcast, under one roof. That model built the industry, and it’s been unwinding for years. In its place we see many alternative models, all of which have pro’s and con’s. Beside the traditional agency of record and lead agency models, some of these alternatives include: hub-and-spoke, in-house, embedded incubation, modular roster, specialist ecosystem, and even a decentralised autonomous model built on blockchain. The real question isn't which structure looks best on a slide, it's what’s fit for purpose for achieving the right outcomes in support of the business and marketing strategy. Whether they genuinely save money, improve performance, or simply move cost, complexity and accountability somewhere else are a few of the questions the panel interrogated.

Hosted by David Blyth of eatbigfish Africa (represented by Delta Victor Bravo), in partnership with the Association for Communication & Advertising (ACA) and the Marketing Association of South Africa (MASA), the fifth session of Season 3 of the Daily Maverick Marketing Masterclass, “The Great Restructure”, put the question to three people living it from different sides: Le-Anne Engelbrecht, Growth Director at RCL Foods; Jonty Fisher, Chief Strategy and Integration Officer at Publicis Groupe; and Paul van den Berg, Managing Director for EMEA Emerging Markets at OLIVER.

### **Built for a simpler world**

Fisher opened with the obvious diagnosis: the original agency-of-record model was built for a simpler world of TV, print, outdoor and radio. Marketing has since fragmented into a proliferation of channels and disciplines, and clients are now expected to be tech and data experts in their own right. Digital and procurement pressure also accelerated the break-up of the more traditional models.

Engelbrecht agreed, framing it from the client side: the market simply asks more of marketers than it used to, at a time when winning consumer trust is harder than ever. Her answer is fit-for-purpose thinking: marketers can't be experts in everything, so specialist partners and in-house centres of excellence fill the gaps.

For van den Berg, it comes down to one driver above all: client need.

### **Who owns the data**

Blyth raised first-party data ownership as an issue. Engelbrecht noted that RCL Foods has been on a journey to establish where its data sits, who owns it, and whether governance is in place to use it properly. Building a dataset is one thing, keeping it fresh and genuinely usable is another, because it's easy to spend heavily on data infrastructure that never earns its keep.

Fisher confirmed the pattern across Publicis Groupe's client base: almost every client wants to own its first-party data, for sound governance reasons. The group has taken its own view on which data it wants to hold, connecting the customer journey: media activation, CRM, and influencer marketing, around a single source of truth, while still executing off a client's own data where that's the better fit.

### **The cost question**

Cost is usually the first place the conversation goes. Blyth opened with Association of National Advertisers (ANA) data putting in-house operations among its US members at 82%, up from 55% in 2013, and World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) figures showing around two-thirds of multinationals now run some in-house agency capability - both sharp increases on a decade ago. He then put a number to van den Berg directly: OLIVER's marketing claims average savings of around 30% for clients that move in-house.

Van den Berg traced the figure back to OLIVER's engagement with Unilever, close to a decade ago, when the business consolidated small, fractional agency relationships into dedicated, trained teams who understood the brand properly. The saving came partly from restructured overheads, partly from no longer re-briefing a new supplier for every job. Most long-standing clients, he said, point to savings of 25 - 40%. But he also noted that it is not just about cost saving.

### **Running more than one model at once**

For Engelbrecht, the decision was never about cost alone. RCL Foods built its in-house capability around three goals: the effectiveness of the creative work produced, the speed and efficiency of getting it to market, and proximity - keeping the team close enough to the business to understand its commercial reality. The organisation now runs several models at once across its categories, with dedicated centres of excellence where the category demands it. “There's a real understanding and depth of knowledge that is required in certain categories,” she said, pointing to pet food as one that turned out far more complex than she expected when she joined the business.

Running multiple models in parallel has a cost of its own, though. Without absolute clarity on roles and responsibilities, the complexity creeps back in and undermines the efficiency it was meant to create, a tension RCL Foods is working to simplify. “Too much complexity is not great.” Asked how to match a model to needs that shift through the year, van den Berg and Fisher offered versions of the same fix: a light, always-on core topped up with specialist expertise - or, in Fisher's view, an approach that lets people roll on and off a client's business for peaks, troughs and one-off problems.

### **Integration, lock-in and trust**

Blyth put a provocation to the panel: does deep integration create a kind of lock-in, and does that translate into longer relationships? Fisher's answer was that tenure isn't valuable on its own - what compounds is the work itself, and the shared context, institutional memory and trust that let a team take on bigger problems. He cited Kantar data showing integrated campaigns delivering roughly 60% more uplift than non-integrated work - evidence, he said, that the belief isn't just industry folklore. But integration alone doesn't guarantee strong work: the causation runs through effectiveness, not time served.

Engelbrecht stressed that what integration gives her (and her embedded partners) is proximity and speed, but the relationship still has to earn its place on both sides, through open numbers, honest conversations and equal accountability. Van den Berg agreed, describing OLIVER's model as partnership protected by proximity rather than dependency. Being inside the client's business gives the agency its clearest vantage point on its problems, but only if that intimacy keeps adding value.

### **Keeping institutional knowledge intact**

A member of the audience question asked how organisations modernise and restructure while preserving institutional knowledge and staff trust, and what mistakes leaders tend to make along the way. Van den Berg's answer starts with culture: OLIVER's model works by finding a client's actual pain point first, embedding inside the business, and building the trust needed to extend new capability and drive change from within, rather than handing over a toolset and walking away. Engelbrecht responded to say that RCL Foods works to keep its way of working embedded and its processes well documented, so nothing is lost when people or partners change. Fisher called it designing for memory: with the industry now in something close to permanent restructure, driven by how fast AI and technology are moving, centralised asset libraries and clear playbooks are becoming as basic to the job as the work itself.

### **Where AI fits**

On AI, the panel agreed on both the opportunity and its limit. Fisher described large multinational clients centralising AI-driven production at scale, with local markets adapting that work for rollout through a “secondary production” layer. Most powerful, he argued, when production and media planning operate as one engine rather than two. Van den Berg went further: AI isn't another vertical capability to bolt on but a horizontal force that changes everything at once, which is why embedding people, process and technology inside a client's business, rather than delivering it from outside, is central to OLIVER's transformation model.

Engelbrecht made a point that cut through both: AI is only useful in service of a defined problem. “AI for AI's sake is not helpful unless you know what you're solving for.” Fisher agreed it isn't a silver bullet, judgement and curation still matter more than the tool itself, however fast the tools make things feel.

A further question asked where that leaves the independent operator - the fractional expert working outside any agency structure. Fisher's view: the industry is more complex than a one-person-plus-AI equation; judgement and curation remain the scarce resource, however capable the tools get. Van den Berg answered from OLIVER's own model, built on people, process and technology: a sequence he said AI is now reordering, with technology moving to the front. Being embedded inside a client's business is what lets an agency bring capability and guidance from within, and that, he said, only pays off if both sides of the relationship, client and agency, change with it.

### **The winning model**

Asked to close with one thought each, the panel referred back to where the session started. None pretended that cost and accountability simply disappear under a new model. For Fisher, the winning model is whichever one builds a single accountable operating system around a client's actual growth problem; chasing every channel, or copying someone else's structure, just adds more fragmentation. For van den Berg, in-house should now be a standing part of every CMO's toolkit alongside AI. Neither is a universal fix, and both only work in service of a clearly defined problem. Engelbrecht's final point was about people: once you've found the model that fits, it still takes maturity on both sides, and a willingness to drop the service-provider mindset that keeps client and agency on opposite sides of the table.

Blyth closed on the same note the panel had been circling all session: the model matters less than the commitment to the one you've chosen, and seeing it through. **DM**

**About the series**

*This was the fifth session of “We're Picking Fights”, Season 3 of the Daily Maverick Marketing Masterclass, hosted by eatbigfish Africa (represented by Delta Victor Bravo) in partnership with the Association for Communication & Advertising (ACA) and the Marketing Association of South Africa (MASA). Six fault lines, one platform for tough debate. The series runs as a one-hour webinar every second Thursday from 11 June to 20 August 2026. The next episode asks where your media money really goes - The Invisible Heist, on ad fraud - and takes place on 20 August. To view the series, visit Daily Maverick Events.*