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'In-house advertising' - words that, when uttered together, have been guaranteed to bring howls of disapproval and disbelief from adland's establishment over the years.

Everyone in the industry knew you went in-house to save money to the detriment of quality work. If traditional agencies weren't making it with all their years of experience, how could it ever be any good? It's all going to end up a bit Michael Winner, you mark our words.

Well, adland is being proved wrong yet again.

The Specsavers campaign is an example of a client thinking differently about how to spend its embattled marketing budget. Rather than spend it all on big agency fees, irrelevant layers of senior management and duplicated job functions, why not save money and reinvest it in production and media budgets? Go direct and cut out the middleman. Why should advertising be any different from any other category in the commercial world?

Specsavers is proving that the in-house model can work. A series of funny ads is cutting through and beating all but one of adland's own output in this week's Adwatch table.

Under the long-running 'Should have gone to...' banner, the ads laugh us into liking Specsavers. Though some may be better than others, no one can deny that the ads are being noticed. The Specsavers approach should serve as a wake-up call to anyone needing to rethink the way precious marketing funds are spent. We all have to find smarter, modern ways to spend our money. If we don't, there's a good chance that it won't be ours for much longer.

I would offer one word of caution, however. If there is one area in which Specsavers could improve the work, it's not in the ads, but in the campaign overall. While the ads cut through, I'm not convinced that they build to anything bigger.

Ironically, that's where Specsavers could be missing out on an agency. You see, in these tough times, making ads is no longer the most important thing that clients need from their agencies. The good ones are strategic running-mates, not just ad-making machines. We are commercial partners, not just 'ad luvvies'.

Although Specsavers' approach may not be right for everyone, it offers a lesson to us all. In an environment where money is tighter than ever and has to be spent differently, agencies need to learn to apply creativity to commercial ideas, not just ads. If we don't do that, we have no role - and if we can't see that, we really do need our eyes testing.