Thank you:
Thank you to our panel: Andrew Reeves, Fractional CFO who leads the Commercial Group, Esther Carder, Partner at Moore Kingston Smith, Ryan Lietaer, Founder & CEO at Accomplice, Lee Hanson, Creative Director at Kingdom Creative, Darren Burroughs, MD of MFM & Emma Martin, Managing Partner at The Specialist Works.
A valuable conversation was had and it was encouraging to hear perspectives from a varied panel on how independent agencies can collaborate more effectively to deliver stronger client outcomes.
Key Takeaways from some of our Panel:
Andrew Reeves:
1. The collective talent across the Alliance is far stronger than any one stand alone member
2. That each and every agency has a particular uniqueness that makes it special
3. That it is this uniqueness that drives growth for this agencies
4. That our uniqueness is driven by the real characters within our business, not some meaningless holding companies set of bland values.
5. That when orchestrated across a single set of goals, the combined set of expertise provide the biggest client benefits
6. That as a result, we must learn better ways of working across our members to betters serve our own goals, and those of the clients.
Emma Martin:
“There was no dissent on the panel about creative and media each working better when done collaboratively but my key takeout was the importance of the client internal teams – marketing and procurement – to ensure that collaborative environments succeed.
Barry Byrne of Umbrella had some fantastic insight in how that manifests from a client perspective and the opportunity to incorporate joint KPIs that inform individual agency commercials. “
Lee Hanson:
“We spend a lot of time talking about agency structures, but perhaps the bigger question is how we incentivise collaboration between media and creative?
Some of the best outcomes happen when specialist agencies are brought together early enough to shape the solution, not just execute their part of it.”
Darren Burroughs:
“One of the themes that kept coming up today was that integration isn’t really about structure, it’s about mindset. When media and creative genuinely collaborate, you get better work and a stronger commercial story; one that can win over both marketing teams and procurement. The foundation for that is trust, transparency and shared measures of success.”
Key themes from the discussion:
Integration is about outcomes, not structure
While media and creative agencies often operate separately, successful collaboration depends less on organisational design and more on shared objectives, governance and client culture.
Early alignment drives better results
Several examples highlighted the importance of bringing media and creative teams together at the outset of planning, ensuring strategy, messaging, channels and measurement are aligned from day one.
Shared KPIs matter
The group agreed that collaboration is most effective when agencies are measured against common business outcomes rather than siloed performance metrics, creating genuine accountability across disciplines.
Media and creative are complementary strengths
Media agencies often excel at delivering short-term performance gains, while creative agencies play a critical role in long-term brand building. The strongest client outcomes come when both capabilities work in concert rather than in isolation.
The role of the integrator/orchestrator
An important theme was the value of a lead partner acting as an integrator, connecting stakeholders, coordinating activity and maintaining strategic coherence across the wider ecosystem, regardless of who executes individual workstreams.
Independent agencies have a unique opportunity
The flexibility, specialist expertise and entrepreneurial mindset of independent agencies position them well to build collaborative models that may be harder to achieve within larger network structures.
Members can continue the chat on this or other Commercial topics on the Member Commercial WhatsApp group here
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