Indies Are Busting Myth That Bigger is Better: Headcount “Makes An Agency Fat, Not Big”

Some big brands are still convinced they need to work with big agencies, but indie founders, who are offering flexible models and consistent access to senior talent, argue that’s a myth strengthened by inertia.

Matilda Hobba, one of four co-founders of ‘clubhouse for ideas’ Pembleton, is one of many Australian agency leaders who have started their own shop over the past few years. That trend, a splintering market, and a healthy freelance community mean it’s no longer true that “the big brains” are in the agencies with the richest heritages. Instead, “the big brains [in big agencies] are now very stretched, and so it's unlikely you will access the brains you are actually there for in the first place.”

Pembleton is currently working on a brand campaign for Telstra subsidiary Belong, and counts Pizzini and Zeus Street Greek as clients. The co-founders promise their individual proximity to a project end-to-end, and say they build and retain client knowledge while assembling freelance teams to execute. This arrangement means the co-founders are the experts in the client and its category, while the makers remain experts in craft and culture.

Despite models like Pembleton’s, Matilda thinks big accounts remain with big agencies because there’s a statistical comfort and cushioning in scale, a sense that if “there’s 100 people in this building, my project will be done.” Those clients should be asking, “Are you getting very, very senior people on your brand, on your problems, from start to finish? Are you getting your senior people on the brand for the first 25% and then, because of the model that agency has to operate in to be profitable ... they have to move it through the machine so that other projects can come in and start at the top?

“Big agencies would be aware that there are other offerings in the market which are more potent than they are, but I suspect that they are probably leaning on that there is comfort knowing that the agency is big, and so you can throw anything at them, and they'll be able to deal with it.”

David Brown, the managing director and partner at Noisy Beast, mentions clients might work with a storied agency “because it’s who they think they should be working with, or it’s a name they are comfortable with -- it’s an easier sell to the board.” In a news cycle dominated by headlines of consolidation, though, “often, the irony is that the big network agency isn’t actually that big locally anymore.”

So how do indies challenge clients’ powerful feelings of comfort, which can be perceived as shorthand for certainty and security? Matilda says founders who have left established agencies are in the best position to balance the fresh with familiar, change with comfort. She established Pembleton with two Bullfrog colleagues and a creative from Saatchi & Saatchi, so “we are now heads of departments of all of those comfortable agencies, and now we're just on our own. We bring a little bit of comfort with us because of our heritage.”

Laura Aldington, Simone Gupta, and Jon Austin launched indie Supermassive with a similar ‘hub and spoke’ model, which sees them engage freelance specialists project-by-project to support a small core team. The three former Havas execs believe the issue is definitional: big projects do require big agencies, but the industry needs to reimagine what a ‘big agency’ looks like; “it’s not about the size of your headcount. That’s what makes an agency fat, not big.”

“Do important, significant projects require many roles, many layers of bureaucracy, and many stakeholders? Absolutely not,” they say. “In fact, that kind of ‘big’ can often hinder projects. But do big projects require agencies with big experience, big skillsets and big thinking? Absolutely.”

Jaimes Leggett, the founder of Today the Brave, agrees. Independence references ownership structure, not size or capability, he points out. An independent’s competitive advantage is its culture, entrepreneurialism, and philosophy. And like Supermassive’s co-founders, he calls out the lack of red tape, with indies operating “closer to clients, with fewer layers of bureaucracy and more direct access to the tools and talent that make great work happen.”

Tim Harvey is the founder of un-held, a consultancy helping independent agencies ‘scale without a sale’. BBH’s ex-chief growth officer says, “we tend to think of indies as smaller with less scale, and holdcos as bigger with more scale”, but advances in technology and a changing talent market have not only served as a “great equaliser” but tipped the “scale scales.”

“Once upon a time we sold ‘economies of scale’. These are now arguably ‘diseconomies of scale’; because of their fixed nature, they are loaded with cost from day one without flex.”

Clients need scalability, not scale, he argues. “The nuance is super important, an ability to scale – up and down when needed – versus fixed scale with no ability or agility for change. Economies of scale are dead, long live economies of scalability.”

The ‘bigger is better’ myth isn’t necessarily perpetuated primarily by clients. Jess White, CEO at Cassette, believes “it’s more to do with agencies.” Network agencies have begun to reclaim their size and scale -- BBDO recently repositioned to ‘Do Big Things’ to reignite pride in its heritage and ambition -- but Noisy Beast’s David wonders whether “that’s their [network agencies’] only point of difference.” Jess believes Cassette “could do a better job at demonstrating that the best team for the project doesn’t always need to be the biggest.”

Supermassive’s name articulates the scale of its goals. Its founding trio believes a combination of seniority and smarts, modernity, and model give the shop an ability to “deliver a disproportionate impact for brands, far beyond that of a traditional ‘big’ agency.”

In the 18 months since it has launched, Laura and Jon have each joined a client’s board, “so we can be part of bigger conversations, further upstream,” and the agency has launched a hotel on Hamilton Island, worked on the legislation-changing 36 Months initiative, and branded and launched digital protection tool, Truyu, for Commonwealth Bank.

Jaimes uses CommBank as an example of a client that needs to work primarily with a big agency in M&C Saatchi -- where he was formerly CEO -- to keep up with the volume of work.

“They’ve got campaigns running across credit cards, mortgages, savings, and everything in between. That’s a lot of moving parts, with multiple teams working in parallel. That’s where big agencies come in -- they’ve got the sheer scale to keep all those plates spinning at once.”

The same is true for Telstra, a telco with over 33,000 employees and annual revenues of more than $23 billion. Brent Smart, its CMO, has been clear that the benefit of his +61 agency model is the global scale and capabilities of TBWA, balanced with the creative pedigree of studio Bear Meets Eagle on Fire. Marketers like Brent are challenging the ‘big projects need big agencies’ myth, and Jaimes says the clients approaching Today the Brave -- like News Corp, Carnival Cruise Lines, and the University of Sydney -- similarly recognise “we can do all the stuff that anyone else can do. And do it better.”

“The vast majority of clients in Australia aren't running multiple streams of projects all the time,” Jaimes adds. “They’ve usually got one or two big briefs on the go, not a dozen. And that’s where indie agencies thrive. They’re nimble, they’re focused, and they’re full of the best talent in our industry.”

The indie’s work for News Corp, for example, has involved launching new brand platforms and a range of integrated campaigns, driving subscriptions. Produce big work, and you attract big clients, or as Jaimes puts it, “Do it once, do it faster, easier and better, and suddenly that doubt is gone.”

Katheryn Korczak, the co-owner and head of copy at Adelaide-based NATION, concurs “the proof is in the pudding. The work should speak for itself and agencies that are consistently doing exceptional things eventually get on the radar and the big pitch lists.”

“Creative villages of smaller boutiques with hyper-specialised skills can also give clients an edge,” she notes. In last year’s Tourism Australia pitch, for example, the tender originally invited indies to form a coalition to pitch for the account and collectively provide a depth of capability across markets. Jess adds agency villages work well to unite networks and indies on the same rosters.

For the past seven years, NATION has worked with the South Australian Country Fire Service on its Bushfire Ready behavioural change campaign. In 2022-23, four in five said the campaign made them consider their bushfire preparedness, and the campaign’s steadily-increasing KPIs have been met each year. The strategy has remained solid, while execution has adapted to the annual environmental conditions and community sentiment, Katheryn says.

Each founder is adamant indies offer clients what they most value: consistent access to senior talent, flexibility on model and pricing, and work that is creative and effective. Laura, Simone, and Jon have never heard clients say, “I wish we’d had more agency people in the room”; instead, they want “experienced people to help them solve knotty problems better, faster and more often.” Katheryn adds marketers are “sick of the A-team coming to the pitch, then disappearing.” And David observes clients want an equal dose of effectiveness and efficiency.

“The networks preach that you can’t have speed, low cost, and high impact, so pick two,” he says.

“You’ll find that it’s actually this model that drives independents more than most. The ability to find ways to get it done – each individual knows they have a role to play and they can make the difference, not getting stuck in a big machine as a small cog.”

At the end of 2023, Noisy Beast introduced a new brand platform for Victoria University, ‘Uniquely You’, and launched the latest campaign in December. The idea won the agency the pitch, and has led to VU becoming the state’s fastest-growing university. Web traffic is up by double digits, as is open day attendance, David says.

“Applications are up year-on-year and comprehension of what the unique VU model offers is at a six-year high. Brand tracking shows that brand preference is at its highest level to date.”

While Jaimes notes some indies grow to a larger headcount than their network counterparts, Matilda wants Pembleton to stay small -- she knows it doesn’t have to significantly scale to do big work. “We're really, really happy to do this with a small number of really big clients.”

She does acknowledge some marketers worry that the senior talent they’re promised will become less available as a small agency grows.

“Perhaps it's because clients are used to being one of a million” that makes them say, “'There's only four of you, if I come in with my really big project and someone else comes in with their really big project, I'm going to be back to where I was, and probably worse.'

“But the reality is that our business model doesn't need to have 100,000 big clients to exist, and so it's sort of a moot point.”