2021 will be an industry-defining year for creative and marketing teams. Emerging from the challenges of 2020, teams are faced with reduced resources, increased demand for work, and the need to find new ways to engage their audience. However, in 2021, creative teams will also have an unprecedented ability to position themselves as strategic partners, as their organizations increasingly rely on them to find creative solutions to new challenges.

As report contributor Matthew Rayback, Creative Director at Adobe puts it, “The creativity that was needed in the past is not the creativity that is needed today.” This report will provide statistical insights and best practices from industry leaders to help inspire teams to identify a path forward.

Key findings in this year’s report signal big changes for creative teams. A whopping 93% of teams believe that creative content is considered important to driving business outcomes, the highest percentage we’ve seen in four years of publishing this report. Furthermore, “being seen as a strategic contributor” fell out of the top three challenges for the first time in four years. Together, these findings tell us that creative teams are no longer seen simply as a set of hands.

This year we will also see the end of the dichotomy of in-house v. agency. Many in-house creatives are going to be asked to work on smaller teams and hone broader skill sets. This will lead to increased reliance on agency and freelance partnerships to flex resources and bring on specialized skills. This is why we dropped the “in-house” from our report title this year. 

It’s clear the marketing and creative professionals who drive business outcomes make up a rich ecosystem of internal and external contributors. They must find ways to create content as partners and collaborators instead of as competitors. 

We hope that these findings and insights help fuel data-driven decisions about your teams and processes to drive better content outcomes for your brands.