Does size matter when it comes to creative agencies?
Bigger is always better, am I right? Well I can tell you from experience that isn’t always the case. But get your mind out of the gutter, I am talking about agency size.
I have navigated huge network agencies, small independent shops, and everything in between as a Creative Director throughout my career. People constantly argue about which model is superior, so I am going to give my objective view on each. Well, as objective as I can be now that I am firmly rooted in a smaller independent agency.
The Muscle
Let’s start with the big network agencies. If you are a creative who just wants to make big work, there is an undeniable lust that draws you into these massive machines. They have legacy clients with huge briefs that you know will land at certain points in the year. It’s the agency's Super Bowl, it might even be a Super Bowl brief. The stage has already been built; you just have to be the best performer.
But the thing about big agencies is that the main battle is entirely internal. You are fighting tooth and nail inside the building just to make the big showpiece. During that process, you aren’t thinking about the client, and you’re not even really thinking about the agency. Your only focus is on how to best the other creative teams in the department. It is an exhausting game of survival. A fun one, sure, but tiring all the same.
The Hustle
Now let’s move over to the smaller shops. Creatively, this is where I think I grew the most in my career. I didn’t have the pressure of other teams ready to strike and steal the work after every creative review, but I did have a completely different kind of pressure turning my creative carbon into diamonds: the high-stakes pressure of having to come up with the winning answer, or losing the client entirely.
The fight in small agencies is that massive briefs aren't a given, sometimes even medium ones aren't. You have to fight just to get work into the building, and those stakes are inherently higher. But for me, this is exactly why the indie model wins, and why I think it will continue to win during the economic shifts we are currently seeing in marketing. Small agencies are agile. We can pivot on a coin toss. We can take creative risks faster and experiment without three layers of executive sign-off from people who don’t even know the client. It completely cuts the nonsense from the creative process.
The Client
One crucial thing I have left out of this comparison so far is what this structural divide actually means for the client.
There is no doubt that big agency infrastructure allows clients to play on a massive field. There are always people who are accountable, at least three tiers of suits ready to fall on their swords if things go wrong, and undeniably talented cogs running the corporate machines. But with that comes multiple degrees of separation between the brand and the people actually making the work. It becomes a game of telephone.
In a small agency, those walls are torn down. Clients get a direct, unfiltered, and honest working relationship with senior creatives. No layers, no fluff, just collaborative problem-solving.
What I fell in love with at small agencies is that we can spend less time navigating internal politics and bureaucracy, and more time protecting the integrity of the idea and the vision for our clients. We know them on a first-name basis. We live their wins and struggles because they are ours, too. For a creative, it is infinitely more rewarding because true ownership is built right into the process.
So, as the financial year wraps up and you start planning the next, I’m throwing down a challenge. I’d love to prove to you that good stuff comes in small packages.
Maybe it’s a project you wanted to do this year, but couldn’t afford your big agency’s overheads. Maybe it’s a campaign you want to lock down right now before next year's budgets get hacked to pieces. Or maybe you just want to know how my ability to bake a three-tiered cake gives me a unique understanding of building multi-tiered campaigns.
Reach out for a chat and yes we’ll bring cake