The Gorilla Glue Company, the adhesives manufacturer, has yielded numerous benefits from handling television advertising through an in-house agency that is involved in every aspect of making its spots. 

Lauren Connley, The Gorilla Glue Company’s vp/global creative, discussed this subject at the Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA) 2020 In-House Agency Conference.

“Our in-house creative team writes our commercials, but we also manage [the process] directly through to production,” she said. (For more, read WARC’s in-depth report: Gorilla Glue generates multiple benefits from in-house approach to TV commercials.)

And this approach leads to many favourable outcomes for the organisation, whether it is seeking to promote glue, tape or construction adhesive.

When an outside agency receives a creative brief “for a product that it’s never even heard of,” Connley said, “it's hard to be in the right mindset. But if you're on the team that helped develop the product, you don't really even need a brief.”

Another payoff from in-housing TV ads relates to the fact it is “really beneficial to turning around creative quickly,” Connley noted.

She has, for example, tapped the same TV production company for eight years. “We have less formal, but frequent touchpoints” than with her former agency team, Connley reported, which can further expedite the process. 

A related advantage is the ability for her team to be directly involved in making the ad: “We get real real-time feedback. As we are literally filming commercials, all of the key players are right there,” she continued.

“We're on the set. We're literally looking through the lens to get the shots right alongside them. That high access makes for a really smooth production.”

The cost savings from its production approach are also reinvested in achieving more exposure for the Gorilla brand, too, creating a virtuous circle.

“Over the past eight years of working with a consistent team, we have actually had a 50% reduction in our production hours ... With that consistent partnership, we can just get more done in a day,” Connley said.

“Instead of taking the savings from production to the bottom line, we just put them into our media so that we make sure that more consumers are seeing our story and hearing our brand's promise.”

Sourced from WARC