Fred Schuster to lead team of in-housing veterans to form global advisory and operations company providing comprehensive support beyond what existing agencies and consultants offer. New model leverages AI as a business platform to solve content creation, resourcing and operational challenges faced by internal agencies.
Led by in-housing pioneers Fred Schuster and James Sanderson, InnerGroup combines experienced advisory with instant, fl exible access to offshore content services. Schuster, CEO, founded McCann’s Craft Worldwide, Ogilvy’s Redworks (the predecessor to Hogarth), and Madras Global, now part of Deloitte Digital. Schuster appointed Sanderson as Global President; Sanderson founded Wunderman Thompson Inside, led Havas Studios’ Prose On Pixels in the UK, built the global creative operations practice for ICP, and was the COO of the Oliver Agency.
“Brands need to treat the in-house agency as their primary Agency of Record,” said Schuster. “By aligning operations, we allow the in-house to adapt faster, more continuously to evolving demands so marketing stays relevant and brands stay resilient.”
InnerGroup applies a new model it calls Adaptive Marketing Operations through two interconnected practices – InnerAdvisory and InnerStudio. InnerAdvisory applies a proprietary diagnostic tool, Inner8, to identify and analyze friction points in eight essential areas, then delivers recommendations to improve the health and strength of a marketing organization. InnerStudio offshore content creation and production unit leverages its proprietary AI workflow system called Mediaferry® AI to generate briefs from notations on a company’s workflow system, instantly assemble teams, and immediately generate content at scale.
“InnerGroup’s new Adaptive Marketing Operations model and AI-first approach to offshore content creation is unique,” said Quinn O’Brien, Chief Marketing Officer at Carnegie Learning. “It gives internal teams the ability to continuously optimize performance while anticipating and accessing resources on demand.”
As Schuster explains it, InnerGroup’s approach combines services not currently offered to in-house agencies. On one hand, management consultants are known to deploy enterprise level cost-cutting strategies but lack the deeper in-house insights to properly align and quickly deploy resources to extend or scale their capabilities. On the other hand, in-house consultants focus predominantly on designing and populating internal resources; but as marketers’ needs change, these models are often too rigid to adapt quickly enough to deliver.
“Nearly 90% of clients have an in-house agency, but 100% of those aren’t working as well as they could because they are agencies,” said Sanderson. “We can simplify and speed up marketing operations so the in-house agency gets stronger, more in sync, and more in control.”
Schuster and Sanderson are supported by a team of experienced in-house marketers, and joined by Sophie Von Pflugl, Global Client Service Director, who led client service for Havas, Publicis, TBWA/Chiat Day and most recently Indicia Worldwide.
The launch of InnerGroup reflects the expansion and evolution of EKCS, InnerGroup’s parent company, founded by long-time in-house experts Robert Berkeley and Tariq Husain. EKCS has been supporting in-house agencies for over two decades for clients such as Starbucks, Hilton, DraftKings, Yelp, Sam’s Club and Pharmavite. Berkeley also hosts a popular podcast, Inside Jobs, where he interviews leading in-house experts.
Headquartered in New York City, InnerGroup will operate globally with offices in the UK, India, and Canada.