In today’s dynamic business landscape, there’s a growing trend of prominent corporations seeking out smaller agencies and freelance professionals to unlock greater value.
The traditional barriers that once hindered such collaborations are dissolving, enabling clients to tap into a more diverse and skilled talent pool globally. This shift enables the delivery of exceptional creative work at a faster pace and a reasonable cost.
In most cases, innovative breakthrough agencies have emerged as top talent moves away from industry giants. John Hunt and Reg Lascaris started their agency from the boot of a car, and they grew it into an worldwide industry legend. It comes as no surprise that many of the small to medium agencies in South Africa had their training at agencies like TBWA.
Today, we’re seeing more smaller agencies and freelancers emerge. This is good, and one could argue, necessary.
Here’s why:
Top talent is more accessible than ever
Local agencies such as Jana & Koos are winning awards for work like Americano (and then some), Abnormal (Joe Public alumni) just cleaned up at the Creative Circle Monthly awards, and BCKRDS’ (GRID alumni) work with global heavy hitters like Nike have helped earn them a nod at the Loeries 2022 awards. As talent breaks away from larger agencies, the value of work and expertise is no longer affected by size and geography, and clients have access to a much broader pool of world-class talent.
A network model delivers creative value
Small agencies tend to adopt a network model in their approach, outsourcing and collaborating with more specialised and experienced partners to bring the best industry talent to work on a client’s account. While larger agencies can also use this approach, smaller agencies tend to be more transparent about it. Small agencies don’t necessarily wish to grow in scale, they wish to push their creative output so that their clients get the best return on their investments. This often means more minds and more input on a creative challenge, leading to more diverse and “fresher” outcomes.
Forging new ways
Not shackled by red tape and institutionalised processes, smaller agencies are more likely to harness new technology and processes to offer their clients newer and fresher approaches to design, strategy, and project management, which leads to value beyond just price and pace. This benefits clients, as well as improves the overall creative product of our industry, as innovation is constantly happening on a micro level, which leads to macro level change.
But even with this increase in small, specialist and boutique agencies, there still appears to be what we call small agency stigma: the fear that smaller agencies may not have had the capacity to handle larger clients and that being small means that they could be squeezed on costs and timelines.
With this in mind, it’s important for small agencies to claim their space, acknowledge their worth, continue to innovate and build trust to demonstrate their value beyond simply being ‘faster and cheaper’.
The trend of working with small agencies is not just a passing phase, but rather a strategic decision to access top talent, diverse skills and value-added services at a reasonable cost. When small agencies are empowered there’s no stopping the South African creative industry reaching global excellence.
Shelley Atkinson is CEO of award-winning, independent brand specialist agency, Murmur. She is a highly decorated designer, art director and brand consultant. Having worked at some of the most prestigious agencies in the country (including being a partner at Grid Worldwide for several years), she started Murmur in 2018 with SJ Naude. She has worked for clients such as the Country of Qatar, SA Tourism, Brand South Africa, Vuma, Provantage and MTN, among many others, and has been awarded and chosen to judge at numerous international design awards.
