The edicts may not be coming yet, but the writing is on the wall. After booming revenue growth among agencies of all disciplines (+13.5% YoY) and Digital especially (+27.9% YoY), an economy facing major headwinds is sure to catch up with the industry in the next 6-12 months. This is no less apparent than the recent restructurings we’ve seen with major players in the digital streaming space. Finance departments who were once ordered to gain a foothold in the streaming wars and direct endless flows of money downstream into the purses of marketing departments are now hitting agencies with rate cards to get their costs down while expecting to keep the content output up. And while the era of free money made it easy for marketing departments to spend, spend, spend, a new reality is creeping up on both internal marketing teams and their agency partners. Something will have to give. Agencies will either be forced to take smaller profits and trim their overhead (layoffs), OR we’ll see an event that triggers massive consolidation among the recent explosion of small "traditional" agencies that have sprouted within every nook and cranny of the social/digital-sphere. Even today, internal marketing departments are being forced to face the music. How can they maintain the creative output needed to attract audiences while being stuck in a budgetary doghouse?

For many of us who have experienced the inner workings of agency life, the answer is pretty clear. We’ve all seen how agencies allocate resources and dreamed of better ways to serve our clients. Some of us have started knocking at the doors of our "insider" colleagues to let us in and show them the alternative. Yes, traditional agencies can turn the gears of big campaigns and get things done at scale, but the answer to tightening budgets has traditionally been to offer less output or even worse, less quality. And while some companies are finding success bringing their creative in-house, this model does not solve all their resourcing challenges when those departments need to quickly scale up or down.

So what’s the alternative? When you hire an agency, you’re hiring the talent that helps you get your campaigns out there into the real world. What if you could still do that without footing the bill for the agency's office, insurance and kegerators and simply tap into the talent you need? Imagine getting the same quality output for your entire content calendar at 30-50% of the cost. Would you invest the savings back into your campaign to create more audience touch points – or better yet, spread it around to other projects that lack sufficient budget support?

In the face of shrinking budgets, don't settle for less. Support all your campaigns and keep the positive results coming in with an agency alternative that uses today's innovations to solve tomorrow's most pressing creative challenges. Get out of Budget Jail. It's a novel idea.

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