The prevailing narrative around in-house creative teams is familiar: as content demands increase and turnaround times shrink, creative quality inevitably suffers. Teams become trapped in cycles of adaptation, production replaces ideation, and eventually the work slips into what many describe as “template mode.”

It is a compelling theory, and one BBS explored in The In-House Agency Paradox. But according to Singapore-based creative director Shawnn Lai, it is also incomplete.

Drawing on leadership roles across agency networks, regional e-commerce giant Lazada, and AI-driven technology businesses, Lai argues that creative stagnation is rarely caused by volume itself. It is usually the result of hiring the wrong people, structuring teams incorrectly, or failing to provide clear creative leadership.

The Hiring Myth

One of the most interesting observations Lai makes is that creative teams often fail because they become too heavily weighted toward one type of employee.

He describes two broad groups commonly found in creative organisations. The first are what he calls the “contented” creatives — highly dependable operators who are comfortable producing adaptations, versioning assets, and delivering work efficiently. They take satisfaction from getting the job done well and moving on. The second group are the ambitious creatives — the idea-driven talent who want to create breakthrough campaigns, win awards, and push creative boundaries.

According to Lai, either group becomes problematic when it dominates the team.

“If you hire only the contented people, stagnation happens very quickly,” he explains. “But if you hire only the stars, they’ll leave within six months because they aren’t getting enough opportunities to do the work they want.”

The solution lies in balance. In his experience, successful in-house teams deliberately create a blend of talent: a majority of specialists capable of handling the enormous volume of everyday content production, and alongside them a smaller group focused on generating ideas, solving larger creative challenges, and driving innovation.

Volume Doesn’t Kill Creativity

Lai rejects the notion that high output automatically produces mediocre work.

At Lazada, where he managed regional creative operations across six countries, the reality was often extreme. Teams might be producing hundreds of assets simultaneously while still being expected to deliver major brand campaigns. The key was not reducing volume. It was allocating work intelligently.

Some team members excelled at rapid production and adaptation. Others thrived when developing larger concepts and campaigns. Rather than treating every creative as interchangeable, Lai structured teams around individual strengths.

“As a creative leader, you should know exactly which people are suited for which jobs,” he says. “You don’t give a retail production brief to somebody whose strength is creating films.”

This principle becomes even more important inside modern technology businesses, where campaign cycles operate at unprecedented speed. At Vocalbeats AI, Lai describes a process where campaign performance data arrived on Monday and new creative assets had to be live by Friday. Dozens of video executions could be created, tested, refined, and redeployed within a single week.

Such timelines would be difficult, if not impossible, to manage through traditional agency models. But for in-house teams specifically designed around speed and iteration, they become entirely achievable.

Spotting “Template Mode”

When asked about early warning signs that a team is slipping into formulaic thinking, Lai’s answer is direct: the responsibility sits with leadership.

“If the work becomes template-driven, I would blame the creative manager,” he says.

For Lai, repetitive work is often a symptom of poor creative allocation rather than a failure of the team itself. Leaders must understand where talent exists, where capability gaps are emerging, and how to keep individuals challenged appropriately.

One technique he used successfully at Lazada was rotating opportunities between teams. Large, high-profile briefs were shared across multiple creative groups rather than being repeatedly assigned to the same people. This ensured that everyone had opportunities to work on significant projects while avoiding the perception that only a select few were trusted with the most exciting assignments. The result was not only stronger morale, but fresher thinking.

“Everybody gets a chance,” Lai explains. “Nobody can say they never get the big jobs.”

Fresh Ideas Need Recognition

Maintaining creative energy requires more than workload management. Lai believes leaders must actively create opportunities for ideas to emerge and be celebrated.

At Lazada, he organised monthly workshops across the six-country creative organisation, each centred on a particular campaign brief — all six countries ran the same campaign. The workshops surfaced promising concepts and identified work worthy of development. Strong ideas were elevated, produced, and in some cases entered into major award programmes. The goal was not simply recognition. It was ownership.

“When people see their ideas being produced, they become proud of the work,” he says.

This sense of contribution helps prevent the disengagement that often precedes creative stagnation.

The Critical Role of Leadership Alignment

Perhaps Lai’s strongest point concerns organisational structure. Many discussions about in-house success focus on technology, process, or resourcing. Lai believes the real issue is executive alignment — specifically, that the creative leader and the CMO must operate as strategic partners with shared accountability.

“The creative lead and the CMO need to be on the same level,” he argues. “They must be responsible for both the good and the bad.”

Without that relationship, creative teams can quickly lose confidence. Once senior leadership begins treating the in-house function as a production supplier rather than a strategic partner, creative ambition erodes. Respect, trust, and shared responsibility become just as important as talent.

AI Won’t Replace Taste

Lai also sees artificial intelligence as a significant advantage for in-house teams, particularly when speed and efficiency are essential. Storyboards, concept visualisations, voiceovers, and production planning can now be completed in hours rather than days, and tasks that once required substantial external costs can often be achieved through AI tools for a fraction of the investment.

Yet he dismisses the notion that AI can replace experienced creative judgement.

“Taste still matters,” he says.

While AI can generate options at remarkable speed, it cannot reliably distinguish between good and bad creative decisions. It cannot recognise subtle brand nuances, identify visual mistakes, or understand the emotional impact of an idea in the way experienced creatives can. The value of AI is not in replacing creative teams but in removing friction from the creative process — a pattern BBS has observed throughout its AI in Production series.

The Real In-House Advantage

The debate around in-house creativity often centres on whether speed comes at the expense of originality. Shawnn Lai’s experience suggests that this is the wrong question.

The most successful in-house teams do not avoid high-output environments. They are specifically designed for them. They hire carefully, organise talent intelligently, align closely with business leadership, and ensure that creative opportunities are distributed fairly. When those foundations are in place, fast-moving in-house teams are not condemned to stagnation — they may be better positioned than anyone to stay relevant, responsive, and creatively effective as content demands continue to accelerate.

Editor’s note: This article continues BBS’s exploration of The In-House Agency Paradox. In the next article, Nicky Russell, founder of the In-House Agency Leaders Club (IHALC), examines the same challenge from a different vantage point — how the measures organisations choose shape the creativity they get.