WPP Creative ?? The holding companies really are eating themselves.
Agencies that defined whole decades of this industry, collapsed into each other in the name of efficiency. Storied brands reduced to line items on a restructuring deck.
It's been happening for years, but now it’s like supermarket sweep.
I spent most of my career either inside or outside them. The latter being the most fun, especially if pitching to steal their clients.
I co-founded three challenger agencies. Varying degrees of success. All driven by a genuine belief the old model was broken, bloated, run by people who confused reputation with relevance.
So I should be celebrating.
I'm not, quite. And that's thrown me.
There's something unsettling about getting what you argued for.
The certainty is gone, yes. The "this is how it's done" orthodoxy, the institutional inertia, the clients who hired the holding company because their boss would recognise the name.
All of it, evaporating. Which is almost certainly correct. Which is probably necessary. Which, frankly, I still believe.
And yet. The king is dead. This time for real. And the court hasn't worked out what’s next.
I have some thoughts on that. I'm doing some work on it, actually, which is more than I expected a few months ago. But I keep asking myself the same question I suspect a lot of people in this industry are sitting with right now:
The old certainties are gone.
I'm not sure anyone's decided what we're drinking next.
Right now the whole industry feels like it’s staring at an empty glass.
