The Game Has Changed

After twenty years delivering solutions for brands within agencies I decided to leave the agency world and build solutions directly for brands. Why?

Because the game has fundamentally changed.

Until recently every time a brand changed agency, the new one needed time to get up to speed. That cost has always been accepted as the price of switching.

Today that playbook no longer works and is the main channel for waste and main blocker to growth.

Today the real cost to brands is what stays behind. The real asset that sits on the balance sheet, what should compound inside the brand is trapped outside by the old playbook.

AI is changing the landscape for marketers and brands. Content is easier to produce than ever. Your data is more valuable than ever. Agencies know this and are evolving their playbooks. Your contracts may not reflect it yet.

One brand I recently worked with was enriching first-party audiences from 20,000 to 200,000 through a major advertising holding company. When I asked who owned the data models at contract end, the CMO said they would need to ask. If that brand leaves for another agency they will need to build that intelligence layer through a new agency.

Are your current contracts building intelligence infrastructure for your brand, or training your agency's systems?

If the answer is the latter, you are building dependency with your current agency and rebuilding from scratch with the next one.

If the answer is you're not sure, it's definitely worth getting under the hood of your marketing infrastructure and contracts before the next review.