'An Utter Lack of BS': US Indie Leaders on Independence in 2025

It's an uncertain, tricky time for agencies – and businesses more broadly – in the USA. The demands are growing, budgets are shrinking, and economic and political instability prompt caution from clients and agency leaders alike.

Independent agencies may feel these pressures even more keenly, without the resources and scale afforded by global networks to weather as significant changes as we’re seeing.

On the other hand, indie creative shops are notorious for their nimble, modern approaches, and the last few years, despite these emerging challenges, have seen a significant population in the US blossom into one of the most exciting markets on the planet.

To get an insight, we asked leaders at some of the USA’s top indies about the main difficulties they’re facing right now, and how being independent is proving advantageous in 2025.

Making Your Name Known

“Our biggest challenge is lack of awareness,” says Trey Curtola, CEO and chairman at H/L. Despite winning an Effie for data-driven marketing and having demonstrable use cases for its blend of tech and human creativity, he shares that the Oakland-headquartered hotshop is often overlooked in this niche for more established companies.

It’s a challenge that Erich & Kallman co-founder and president, Steven Erich, identifies with, sharing that the agency’s biggest challenge is showing prospective brand partners that it’s not being left in the dust by bigger players in the technology race.

“The holding company agencies and the larger independents have the resources to develop proprietary technology in AI and other areas that smaller agencies can’t easily do, and they’re putting this at the front of their capabilities,” he says. “But there’s no proof at this point that this leads to more engaging or effective work.

“The industry gets enamoured with what’s possible in these areas and forgets that what really drives business is the same as it’s always been – having a trusting relationship with highly talented, experienced people.”

Developing these long-term, mutually beneficial brand partnerships is “the most desirable outcome”, agrees Michelle Cobas, managing director and chief growth officer at Hispanic-led Miami agency MEL. But achieving this goal is no small feat for an indie; what nice&frank co-founder and chief strategy officer, Graham North, dubs “the commitment conundrum”.

“Every shred of evidence suggests that committing to your brand does wonders for long-term growth,” he says, “but the industry’s status quo is project-based sprints, often paired with rotating leadership, both of which make it hard to commit to that year-over-year platform building.

“That said, AOR contracts guarantee collective commitment about as well as wedding papers do,” he adds. “We overcome it by building trust in how we shape our ambitions together, honestly assess the impact of our bravest ideas, navigate the people dynamics at our clients’ companies, listen to what consumers really want and need from the brand… and let those dictate the kinds of things we choose to commit and re-commit to, versus a piece of paper.”

Scaling Thoughtfully

Even once successful projects and partnerships have helped indies gain awareness, Mark Fitzloff, founder at Opinionated, reveals another challenge emerges – one that his Portland-based agency is facing now: “How to scale thoughtfully.”

With more high-profile clients now willing to work with smaller independents than ever before in the company’s seven-year history, he says, “We have to be very smart about prioritising our existing clients and not letting our eyes get bigger than our stomachs when exciting opportunities come our way.”

​MIRIMAR’s managing director, Stephanie Thiel, similarly describes its “deliberate” approach to growth, explaining how “attracting the right talent” poses a particularly significant challenge for growing an agency in LA as opposed to New York. This calls for close collaboration with recruiters and a focus on long-term investments in people with aligned values.

​Michelle sees managing growth thoughtfully as MEL’s biggest current challenge, too. “We have no plans for world domination,” she says. “Instead, we work every day to strike the balance between building scale and creating an environment where our chief concern is creatively effective work. The day we become all things to all brands is the day we lose the essence of who we are and what we love to do.”

An Utter Lack of Bullshit

While indie agencies are contending with these issues, the leaders are optimistic about the opportunities and benefits that being independent offers in times of change. Namely: being nimble and relatively unimpeded by traditional, inflexible structures.

Opinionated’s Mark Fitzloff puts it simply: “Our greatest advantage is our utter lack of bullshit.”

He continues, “Our ‘you win, we win’ proposition with brands is really all there is to this business. No upsells, no cross-sells, no hidden agendas, no secret priorities coming from upstairs, no pretending to do work we don’t really do, no industry-wide existential shoe-gazing to indulge in. Just an unshakable belief that creativity is a brand and sales multiplier.”

“Without external agendas, we can pursue creative projects that truly push the envelope and stand out,” agrees Stephanie. “We are not trying to revive or replicate an old business model. From day one, we have been intentional about being specialists who complement, rather than duplicate, the skills of ever-growing internal brand teams.”

H/L’s Trey Curtola affirms that the best aspect of independence today is the direct control it offers over the agency’s creative and business visions. “Without corporate constraints, we’re beholden only to our client partners and ourselves,” he says.

Stephanie adds that this degree of freedom allows MIRIMAR to build stronger relationships with brands, who appreciate the more direct access they have with creative leaders and decision makers. “The greatest advantage is the freedom to focus on creating the best work possible for our partners… Our strategy is clear: help brands discover their Core Creative Idea (CCI) to guide their journey, and create work that resonates widely without relying on paid media alone.”

With many of H/L’s team coming from holding company backgrounds, Trey also recognises this as an important difference. “We feel more free to take risks, adapt to market shifts, and place more focus on instilling a strong, values-driven culture,” he says, agreeing that the freedom to ‘act more entrepreneurially’ also helps his agency build stronger, “more genuine” client relations.

These closer agency-client bonds open up room, says nice&frank’s Graham North, for ‘uncomfortable honesty’ – both with the brands, and within the agency itself. “On the client side, that level of honesty means you hold a less-political, less-precious space to talk openly about hard questions: breaking down what the project does (and doesn’t) need, admitting when a client’s in-house superpowers on something are actually stronger than ours, and figuring out what clients are most scared of on the path to braver work.”

The Biggest Cheat Code

However, “the biggest cheat code”, Graham adds, is that indie agencies are able to implement any new learnings ‘in a heartbeat’. “You can use the best-in-class AI tools instead of proprietary stuff, you can tweak your process based on the invisible power dynamics of a client, you play with your maker model with less politics.

“And when half of Cannes is sweating through their linens about the industry’s existential crisis, it’s very freeing to just be able run some thoughtful experiments about the stickiest challenges and have an honest debate about how creativity can find its new model of scale.”

Steven Erich defines this advantage as “nimbility” – the ability to be nimble in everything an independent agency does. “Don’t look it up, as it’s not an actual word,” he jokes.

“This includes how we approach compensation models, who we choose to partner with to drive client business, bringing in the right talent at the right time, and paying close attention to how our clients choose to work with us versus us telling them how it will work,” he continues.

“Being independent is powerful and liberating these days. There are so many amazing talents who have chosen a similar path to ours, and we can collaborate with them to solve brand problems and build opportunities.”