The Reinvention Moment

There are moments in every industry when the air shifts—when what worked no longer works, and what’s next isn’t yet obvious. The creative agency world is in one of those moments right now.

For decades, agencies have held a unique place in the business world. We were the outsiders who brought fresh ideas inside. The cultural translators. The provocateurs. The ones hired not just to execute, but to inspire. But over the last ten years, the ground beneath us has been slowly eroding. And today, we’re standing on what’s left of a model built for a world that no longer exists.

Digital is no longer the frontier. It's the baseline. Everyone's on it. Everyone knows it. And most importantly—everyone builds in it.

Design, once a differentiator, is now democratized and commoditized. Tools are everywhere. Talent is global. Taste is increasingly uniform. It’s not that design is less valuable—it’s that it’s less rare.

Meanwhile, the rise of AI has shattered the creative monopoly agencies once held. Generative tools can write, design, edit, animate, and compose at a pace and price no human team can match. And unlike past waves of automation, this one doesn’t just change the production layer—it changes the value equation entirely.

Add to this the impact of remote work, which—while flexible and liberating—has diluted the power of team culture, in-room collaboration, and the kind of spontaneous genius that defined the best agency work of years past. Strategy, too, has changed. We used to speak to mass markets. Now we speak to micro-communities, each demanding fluency, credibility, and cultural nuance. You can’t brief your way into insight anymore. You have to live it.

All of this points to a single, unavoidable truth: the traditional agency model is no longer fit for purpose.

And clients feel it. Ask any CMO, any founder, any product leader—and they’ll tell you. The perception of value from agencies has been in a five-to-six-year lull. The fees haven’t made sense. The timelines haven’t worked. The strategy hasn’t landed. The output hasn’t moved the needle.

It’s not that agencies stopped being talented. It’s that the context changed—and most didn’t.

So what now? What does a future look like where agencies are indispensable again?

I believe it starts with reinvention—not incremental improvement, but wholesale transformation. We don’t need to evolve what we’ve done. We need to reimagine what we exist to do.

And here’s something else I believe deeply: there is always a market for the absolute best. Even in commoditized industries. Especially in them. When the baseline becomes average, excellence becomes magnetic. The brands that lead tomorrow will be those who partner with agencies that aren’t just “good”—they’re undeniable.

So how do you become that agency?

Let me show you what it takes:

1. You Have to Be Faster and Smarter Than the Client.
   The only reason to hire an outside partner is because they bring something the inside team doesn’t. If your agency is figuring it out as they go, they’re not an asset—they’re a liability. Clients don’t have time for your learning curve. They want a team that’s already fluent, already moving, already sharp. The best agencies will be built like special ops—small, precise, and fast. Less process, more progress. Less theory, more execution.

2. You’re Not Selling Outputs Anymore—You’re Selling Judgment.
   AI can do more than you. That’s not pessimism, that’s reality. The value is no longer in making something—it’s in choosing what should be made. The future belongs to curators. People with taste, instincts, cultural fluency, and a spine. Agencies that lead tomorrow will be prized not for what they can make, but for what they say no to. Because in a world of infinite content, discernment is the new superpower.

3. You’ve Got to Be Ruthless with Value.
   Clients are done funding bloated timelines and vague scopes. They want clarity. Efficiency. ROI. The best agencies will treat every dollar like it’s their own—automating what can be automated, removing friction wherever possible, and reinvesting in the work that actually changes the trajectory of a business. You’re not being paid for your hours. You’re being paid for your impact.

4. You Need to Get Close Again.
   Remote work taught us a lot—but it took something too. The chemistry. The friction. The unplanned breakthroughs that happen in the margins. We need to bring back proximity—thoughtfully, not dogmatically. That means showing up in person when it matters most. Solving problems in the room, not on the Zoom. Rebuilding a culture of immediacy, speed, and trust.

5. Strategy Has to Be Lived—Not Just Learned.
   You can’t write strategy for audiences you’ve never sat beside, never listened to, never understood. We’ve relied too long on research reports and abstract personas. That doesn’t cut it anymore. Strategy in the new model is experiential. It’s diverse by design. It's fluent, local, and lived. If you don’t have people on your team who are inside the culture you're trying to reach, you’re not doing strategy. You’re doing guesswork.

6. Stop Chasing Awards. Start Creating Acceleration.
   You don’t get hired to impress other agencies. You get hired to move the business forward. The best agencies will obsess over client success metrics, not juries. They'll celebrate growth, not gold statues. They’ll be known for their ability to create velocity. That’s the only thing clients are buying: the confidence that you can take them somewhere faster than they can go alone.

This is our reinvention moment. Not everyone will make it through. But the ones who do will build a new standard. They’ll command attention not because they say the right things, but because they deliver. Because they’re sharper, quicker, and more indispensable than ever.

Agencies aren’t going away. But the mediocre ones are. What remains will be the ones who know exactly who they are, exactly what they offer, and exactly what it takes to lead again.

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If you’re inside the creative industry—or partnering with agencies to drive your business forward—this is your moment to rethink the model. Reinvention isn’t a buzzword. It’s a requirement. And those who rise to meet it will shape the next generation of what’s possible.

If you found today’s episode helpful, take a second to follow or subscribe on Substack, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. I post five to six times a week, always short, always focused, and always committed to helping you lead with clarity in an increasingly noisy world.

Until next time—be sharp, stay honest, and keep building what matters.