Lego is building out an in-house programmatic team

According to Lego’s posted job listings, the global manager role required a “subject matter expert” in programmatic media to lead execution for the Danish company’s direct-to-consumer unit. The position would be briefed to “build, lead, and inspire a high-performing programmatic team,” according to the listing.

“We’re embarking over the next couple of years to build an in-house digital paid media team to allow us to be successful in a rapidly changing marketplace,” said Freddie Liversidge, vp of global media activation at the Lego Group, in a statement. “This is being done in partnership with our key strategic partner, Publicis Media. We are looking for great people to join our growing teams in offices around the world and support us in our mission to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow.”

Lego isn’t alone in bringing on board more in-house talent. In January, U.K. retailer Boots moved to hire a digital media manager in order to in-house its paid social operation — the final piece of the puzzle for the retailer, according to head of performance media Neil Jones.

Boots’ 27-person-strong team already handles programmatic media buying, as well as its spending on CTV, affiliate PPC and audio.

“We’ve reached a point where we can move quicker, we can have more control, we can have our own accounts,” said Jones. “For a retailer that literally trades each day as it comes, we needed a team that could match the cadence of the business and that proximity to trade.”

Paper manufacturer Georgia-Pacific, the company behind the Brawny and Angel Soft brands, began in-housing in 2019. It now handles all its media investments except for TV, which is handled by media agency OMD. According to Paras Shah, Georgia-Pacific’s senior director of digital media, the company employs four programmatic traders.

And at Dollar Shave Club, Nikki Frisz, senior director of marketing, told Digiday the grooming brand now manages its entire media operation in-house with a four-person team. “It has allowed us to be a lot more efficient,” said Frisz.

Advertising creative has been the low-hanging fruit for many brand in-housing efforts. Home Depot parted ways with BBDO last week, as part of a broader plan to bring its creative efforts inside, for example. And Lego established its own in-house creative and production unit, The Lego Agency, back in 2014.

But bringing media inside has proven more of a challenge for advertisers, due to scarcer talent and higher upfront costs. Most brands begin by bringing paid search and social investments in-house, said Dominic Satur, founder and principal at consultancy Alligator Solutions.

“There’s a real strategic benefit to brands in-housing social and search, because organic, social and organic social and organic search, very often already [are] in house,” he said. 

Between upfront costs and scarce talent, programmatic has proven hardest of all. Bill Duggan, group evp at the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), called media the “final frontier” of in-housing.

While 82% of ANA members had an in-house agency when surveyed in 2023, 61% of advertisers have their programmatic investments handled by an external agency, according to ANA research published this January. And just 13% handled their own programmatic advertising, while 26% employ a hybrid approach, with both in-house and external teams involved. (In-house media units are more common in the U.S.; Only 5% of U.K. in-house advertising operations included media planning and buying capabilities, according to a survey published in 2025 by the In-house Agency Leaders Club.)

Georgia-Pacific’s Shah said G-P’s hybrid approach rests upon “acting as one team” across agency and in-house department. “Our in-house team has a very strong relationship with the national media agency [OMD], because they still lead the planning, we lead the activation and execution,” he said.

“There’s always going to be areas where you’re going to need agency support,” added Alligator Solutions’ Satur.

But as more media is traded programmatically and as in-house operations like Boots’ and Georgia-Pacific’s mature, they’re taking on more and more operations that were previously the sole domain of an agency.

That’s gradually altering the relationships between agencies and clients. Mark Connolly, managing partner for client success at U.K. agency The Specialist Works, said it’s leading some marketers to look to media shops for more consultation, training and advice, rather than the meat and potatoes work of media activation.

“We’ve got a few clients that have got in-house digital teams. In some cases we plan all media … but they want to plan and buy it themselves,” said Connolly. “So, we do training or strategy days.”