Cost, Time & Quality Drive Staff Augmentation In Adland: Vineet Bajpai, Magnon Group

One of the trends soaring high in the adland lately is that of staff augmentation, which translates into temporarily expanding a company's workforce by bringing in external talent, often to meet the demands of specific projects, campaigns, or seasonal work. 

Such an approach allows advertising agencies to scale up quickly without the long-term commitments of hiring full-time employees. It offers flexibility in managing fluctuating workloads, bringing in specialised skills such as creative design, digital marketing, data analytics, or content creation when needed. This model also enables agencies to remain competitive by tapping into external expertise, especially in areas where they may lack in-house proficiency. 

In a quick confab with Vineet Bajpai, founder & CEO, Magnon Group, he explains how staff augmentation helps balance the dynamic nature of advertising with cost-effective talent management, ultimately improving project delivery, enhancing creativity, and driving innovation in a fast-paced environment. 

 Excerpts:

Brands are setting up in-house teams to perform tasks that were traditionally performed by the agencies. Why, according to you, is this trend being picked up more today?

While there are a few crucial reasons for the surge in in-house content teams, the primary one being the escalating demand for rapid, scalable, and cost-effective content production. Today's brands need a constant stream of content to maintain relevance and engage their audiences. While agencies excel at high-level creative concepts, they often struggle to meet the scale and speed required for large-volume content production. This mismatch has led to increased costs and inefficiencies for brands. 

Additionally, in-house teams offer greater control over timelines and revisions, allowing for faster turnaround times and better alignment with brand goals. At Magnon, we recognised this trend early on and established an in-house creative lab for one of the world's largest consumer goods companies five years ago. 

What is the shift towards staff augmentation in the ad industry primarily driven by: cost considerations, quality parameters, or some other factor? 

Yes, that’s correct. Such a shift is steadily driven by three crucial things: cost, time, and quality. Brands need a high volume of content, at a low price, rapidly, without any compromise on quality or timelines.  

Staff augmentation permits brands to retain undiluted focus on their core business while still enjoying absolute control over the speed, volume, and cost of marketing solutions’ output. It brings together the best of both worlds—the specialisation of a creative or production agency, with the exclusivity and rigour of a dedicated team. 

How are you, at Magnon, looking at it as an opportunity to stay relevant in these changing times?  

Many brands that have experimented with in-house content teams have faced challenges in retaining talent and achieving desired results. A primary reason for this is the potential for burnout and decreased motivation that can occur when working exclusively on a single brand. This limited exposure to the broader industry can lead to higher attrition rates. 

On the other hand, agencies not only attract top creative talent due to the opportunity for varied and exciting work but also leverage their specialised skills and resources to achieve economies of scale that single-brand teams might find difficult to match. Moreover, brands whose core businesses are not creative may struggle to achieve the desired level of output from their internal teams. 

Magnon's solution addresses these challenges by offering a hybrid model. We create dedicated in-house teams that operate like internal agencies but are supported by a network of experienced subject-matter experts across various creative disciplines. This provides brands with the benefits of an in-house team while ensuring access to the latest industry knowledge and expertise. 

Our staff augmentation model also enables brand continuity and lowers attrition. By maintaining a connection to the agency, our team members stay updated on industry trends and have access to ongoing professional development opportunities.

What key metrics or performance indicators do brands typically use to evaluate the success of their staff augmentation efforts? 

To evaluate the effectiveness of their staff augmentation efforts, brands focus on key performance indicators such as increased efficiency, decreased costs, and improved turnaround time (TAT). This translates to faster speed-to-market, a decrease in agency costs, and enhanced consistency in brand campaigns. Additionally, deeper-level performance accountability metrics are crucial for a comprehensive evaluation. These include increased sales through ecommerce channels, increased engagement across digital platforms, and higher conversion rates. Such metrics offer insights into the real impact on sales and customer interaction, underscoring the significance of a well-implemented staff augmentation strategy. 

How do you look at the future of staff augmentation in the A&M industry in the next few years? 

As the role of data is increasing, the requirements for more powerful and secured data security are also increasing. In times to come, brands will prefer their data to be in a closed environment, not necessarily being shared across their several agencies. Our teams deployed at our various client offices also have their brands’ email IDs so that the data remains in the closed IT ecosystem.  

Further, as the entire world is leaning more and more towards AI for content requirements and research, the confidentiality of data becomes even more pivotal. Once the data goes into AI, it goes into ML and becomes available for the whole ecosystem. Therefore, brands will prefer creating their own AI modules and keeping their data and teams closer to them in times to come. So, in the next 5-10 years, I only see the in-house agency concept and staff augmentation concept in A&M expanding manifold.  

Soumya Sehgal Bhutani

BW Reporters Soumya is the Senior Editorial Lead at BW Marketing World. She extensively writes on the Indian media, marketing and advertising ecosystem in India.