An agency with clients asking about AI — and no answer
Herman Scheer is a major Los Angeles branding and design agency. They work with CPG brands on campaigns that end up in every supermarket across America. The work is high-stakes, high-volume, and needs to be client-ready at scale.
Their clients were starting to ask about AI. Can you do this with AI? Do you have AI capability? What's your approach?
The honest answer at the time: zero. No structured AI processes. No shared methodology. No quality standard for AI-assisted work. And no way to offer AI as a reliable production service.
That's a dangerous position for any agency. The moment a competitor can say "yes" to those questions and you can't, you're on the wrong side of the conversation.
Training the entire team from zero
We trained their entire team. Not a workshop for two people. Not a lunch-and-learn. The full team, from zero, on the complete NotContent Method.
Before the training was even finished, they were producing client-ready and production-ready assets — image, copy, video, and full campaigns ready to go out into the world for major CPG launches.
Work that can now be seen in every supermarket across America.
The numbers
- $4.5 million in estimated year-one production savings
- Zero to full AI production capability in a matter of weeks
- New revenue streams — profitable AI-powered services they now offer to clients
But the real story isn't just the cost savings. It's the strategic shift.
Herman Scheer went from being defensive about AI to being offensive with it. They're not just saving money on existing work — they're winning new business because of their AI capability.
What their leadership said
Adam, Creative Director at Herman Scheer, described the shift clearly: the agency can now offer new and very profitable services to existing clients, and use their skills to package new offerings to new clients. The fear of being left behind or overtaken by an AI-first agency is gone.
The agency survival question
Every agency is going to face this decision in the next 12 months. Clients will ask about AI capability. Competitors will develop it. The agencies that trained their teams early will be offering AI services at margin. The ones that didn't will be scrambling to catch up — or losing pitches to the ones who did.
Herman Scheer chose to move first. The result: $4.5M in estimated savings, new revenue streams, and a team that's confident in the new landscape instead of afraid of it.
The pattern for agencies
The agency transformation pattern is different from in-house teams. For agencies, the upside isn't just efficiency — it's new business.
When your team can produce AI-assisted campaigns at production quality, you can:
- Reduce production costs on existing client work (protecting margins)
- Offer new AI-powered services to existing clients (new revenue)
- Win new clients who specifically want AI capability (growth)
- Move faster on pitches — concepting and presenting at a pace competitors can't match
Herman Scheer is doing all four. The training paid for itself before it was finished.