The School of Real Marketing
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F1-02·F1 — What Marketing Actually Is

The Three Practitioners: Client, Agency, In-House

The productive tension

In-houseandagency as complementary, not competing

The synthesis

Marketing is not something one entity does alone. It is a joint practice involving three distinct practitioners -- the client-side marketer, the in-house team, and the external agency. Each brings irreplaceable strengths. The false dichotomy of "bring it in-house OR use an agency" ignores that the best marketing organisations calibrate the balance, not eliminate one side.

Learning objectives

  • Identify the three distinct practitioner roles in marketing
  • Explain the structural strengths and limitations of each
  • Articulate why the in-house vs. agency debate is a false dichotomy
  • Describe the conditions under which each model performs best
  • Apply the Both/And lens to marketing organisational design

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