As businesses expand their marketing efforts, many in-house teams find themselves in need of greater structure and processes to handle increasing creative demands.
However, not all in-house agencies are structured the same way. To optimize efficiency and meet diverse needs, in-house agencies are often divided into three distinct tiers: Strategic (Tier 1), Adaptive Design (Tier 2), and Production (Tier 3). Each tier serves a unique purpose, from crafting overarching strategies to executing high-volume tasks, creating a cohesive system that supports creative excellence.
In this blog, we’ll explore these three tiers in detail, discuss their importance, and show how understanding and implementing this structure can help businesses achieve better creative outcomes.

The Three In-House Agency Tiers
To understand the resources you need it’s important to define the type of work you do internally. This ensures you know what partners you need right now, the responsibilities are clear and you have a vision of what tier you want your in-house agency to be in the future.
Tier 1 : Insight, Planning, and Strategy Concepts
At the top of the hierarchy is the Strategic tier, where big ideas come to life. This tier is all about insight, planning, and creativity at its highest level. It involves setting the vision for campaigns and ensuring they align with broader business objectives.
What it includes:
- Developing creative masters, such as the main idea for a campaign and its corresponding master artwork or video.
- Crafting brand stories and architecture that form the foundation of the brand’s identity.
- Creating commercial strategies and campaign blueprints to align creative efforts with business objectives.
- Generating insights and turning them into actionable plans.
- Conceptualizing high-level strategies to guide campaigns and drive innovation.
Why It’s Important:
The Strategic tier sets the foundation for all creative work. It ensures that campaigns are purposeful, cohesive, and aligned with the brand’s mission. This tier is where innovation happens, and it requires deep expertise and a forward-thinking mindset.
Example in Practice:
Consider an insurance company launching a new policy aimed at young professionals. The Strategic tier would define the target audience’s pain points, craft a compelling story that highlights the policy’s unique benefits, and develop the overarching creative concept for the campaign. This could include designing the master visuals and messaging that guide all marketing efforts across channels.
Tier 2: Adaptive Design and Asset Production
Once the strategy and core creative is in place, the Adaptive Design tier steps in to bring it to life. This tier focuses on applying the core creative concept to new deliverables, ensuring consistency across channels and formats.
What It Includes:
- Asset production, including graphics, videos, digital ads, and print materials.
- Creative design tailored for specific campaigns or platforms.
- Copywriting for advertisements, websites, and campaigns.
- Designing user experiences (UX) for emerging technologies like AR, VR, and XR
Why It’s Important:
The Adaptive Design tier ensures that the core creative vision remains intact while being tailored to suit different contexts. It’s the bridge between strategy and execution, ensuring consistency while allowing flexibility.
Example in Practice:
A global retail brand might use the Adaptive Design tier to resize its campaign visuals for Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, ensuring the message is optimized for each platform.
Tier 3: Production and Multi-Channel Adaptation
At the base of the structure lies the Production tier, which focuses on the executional aspects of creative work. This tier is about scaling creative assets efficiently to meet high-volume demands across multiple channels.
What It Includes:
- Transcreation and web development.
- Multi-channel adaptation for different platforms and audiences.
- Post-production tasks, including video editing, CGI, artwork, and presentations.
- Re-versioning, resizing, and automating repetitive tasks.
Why It’s Important:
Tier 3 ensures scalability. It allows businesses to adapt and distribute creative assets efficiently, especially for global campaigns. The ability to resize, localize, and automate tasks ensures that marketing efforts are cost-effective and timely.
Example in Practice:
A global brand launching a campaign in multiple countries might rely on Tier 3 to translate and resize creative assets for each region, ensuring they resonate with local audiences.
Why Understanding In House Agency Tiers Is Important
Recognizing and defining these tiers within an in-house agency offers the following benefits:
- Enhanced Efficiency: Clearly defined roles and responsibilities within each tier ensure that tasks are handled by the appropriate teams, leading to streamlined workflows and faster project completion.
- Cost Optimization: By assigning tasks based on complexity and required expertise, organizations can allocate resources more effectively, reducing unnecessary expenditures and maximizing the value of their creative investments.
- Scalability: A tiered structure allows in-house agencies to scale their operations seamlessly, accommodating increased workloads or expanding into new markets without compromising quality or consistency.
- Brand Consistency: Each tier plays a role in maintaining the integrity of the brand. From strategic planning to execution, a well-defined tiered approach ensures that all creative outputs align with the brand’s identity and messaging.
Conclusion
The three-tier structure of in-house agencies—Strategic, Adaptive Design, and Production—is more than just an organizational framework; it’s the secret to effective and efficient creative production. Each tier plays a distinct role in supporting a brand’s success.
The Strategic tier drives innovation and ensures creative efforts align with business objectives. The Adaptive Design tier bridges strategy and execution, maintaining brand consistency across deliverables. Finally, the Production tier ensures scalability by adapting and automating creative assets to meet high-volume demands.
Together, these tiers create a streamlined and cohesive process that allows businesses to maintain brand integrity, optimize resources, and meet market demands effectively. By understanding and implementing this structure, you can streamline your creative output, identify talent gaps and the right partners to work with and create a vision of where you want your in-house agency to be.
Whether you’re building a new in-house agency or refining an existing one, embracing this tiered approach will position your organization for long-term success in a fast-paced, ever-changing market.