There is a comfortable story making the rounds: independent agencies are having a moment, the holding companies are in decline, and the future belongs to nimble, founder-led shops.
You’ll read about it in the advertising trade press. Countless consultants selling services to independent agencies proclaim it loudly on LinkedIn, at agency conferences and on their private Slack channels.
It is a satisfying narrative. It has a HUGE audience as there are thousands of indie agencies.
It is also, on close inspection, only partially true.
One of the problems with “the indies are having a moment” narrative is that is largely lacks a factual foundation. The folks making the claims are doing so without data or facts.
Let’s see what is really going on.
The most rigorous person tracking this question right now is Brian Wieser, the former GroupM/WPP economist who now runs his own research firm, Madison and Wall. Over the past year he has built a recurring quarterly tracker of the largest independent agencies, published a flagship “the industry isn’t dying” report, and talked through the nuances in a long December interview as well as his own podcast. Pull his numbers and his commentary together and a more fact-based picture emerges — one where “indies are growing” is true in aggregate, but only because a single segment is doing almost all the lifting.
Yes, indies are modestly outgrowing the HoldCos. But where and how?
Wieser publishes a quarterly like-for-like growth read on the 30 largest privately held independent agencies, and in every recent quarter they have beaten the public holding companies.
- 2Q25: top independents grew roughly 2%, versus about 1% for the holding companies
- 3Q25: 2.7%
- 4Q25: 2.9% — “well ahead of HoldCos,” per Brian
- Full-year 2025: private independents grew about 2%, while the public holding companies grew just 0.5%
The “indies are growing” claim survives contact with the data. Independents are, in Wieser’s own framing, “doing a percentage point or two better” than the giants — with the important caveat that his data skews toward the US, which is itself outperforming the rest of the world.
But notice how small the gap is. A percentage point or two is a real edge, not a revolution. And Wieser is careful about the methodology: his independent estimates use LinkedIn headcount as a proxy for revenue, and even all 30 of the largest independents combined are still smaller than a single holding company like Interpublic. Widen the lens to the top 300 independents and you are talking about the equivalent of Interpublic plus Omnicom; the top 3,000 and you have added Publicis on top. Without a full census, he stresses, certainty is impossible.
If indies are modestly outgrowing HoldCos, just where and how?
Here is where the common narrative breaks down. When you ask which independents are growing, the answer is not “independents.” It is “media and performance agencies” — a distinction Wieser draws sharply and repeatedly.
Within the independent set, performance-based media agencies are “growing much faster than everyone else.” That single sub-segment is what pulls the blended indie composite up to its 2–3% range. Strip it out, and the rest of the independent world looks very different.
Wieser made this explicit in a December 2025 interview on Co:definery’s “The Immortal Life of Agencies.” His clearest statement of the divergence:
- “The independent media agencies are doing well and the global holding company media agencies are doing well. In other words, media agencies are doing well everywhere. Creative networks are generally struggling. Independent creatives… are probably doing relatively well in terms of winning business, but it’s not clear that the revenues are necessarily collectively any better off. And then PR is struggling everywhere, which is really interesting, a recent phenomenon.”
Read that carefully, because it reframes everything. Independent creative shops are winning work — but not necessarily revenue. They are picking up assignments while their top lines stay roughly flat. Media, whether independent or holding-company-owned, is the segment actually growing.
Net, the catch to “the indies are winning” story is that media is doing all the work, not creative
This part of the story is showing up nowhere in the trade press or from the stages of agency conferences or at Cannes.
That does not mean that creative agencies are failing or that the indie creative agencies are doomed. It simply means that indie creative agencies aren’t riding a huge wave of success. There are things each agency needs to do to succeed today and tomorrow. Just as it always has been.
Why creative work scatters but the money doesn’t
There is an elegant structural reason for this split, laid out by Wieser’s co-host Olivia Morley and endorsed by him. A large brand with a global media purview has only a handful of partners capable of handling its media dollars — so media consolidates into a few scaled players. But a brand shopping for creative has almost unlimited choices, so creative assignments fragment out across many independents
The result is a paradox: the logos of creative work spread across indies, creating the visible impression of an independent renaissance, while the dollars concentrate in media at a shrinking number of large agencies. You see indie creative shops in the trade-press win columns; you do not see the revenue following at the same rate.
So, are indies growing?
The data-based answer is layered:
- In aggregate, yes — the largest independents are outgrowing the holding companies, by roughly a point or two a year.
- But not because they’re independent. The growth is a media and performance story, not an independence story. Holding-company media agencies are growing too.
- Independent creative is winning share of work, but roughly flat on revenue. The “indie creative renaissance” is real in assignment count and largely invisible in dollars.
Net, “independent versus holding company” is the wrong axis. The axis that matters is media and performance versus everything else. An independent performance shop and a holding-company media network are on the same rising side of that line; an independent creative boutique and a legacy creative network are on the same struggling side of it.
Indies are having a moment. It’s just a different moment than is being portrayed broadly. It’s a media moment wearing an independence costume.
How can Indie creative agencies truly capitalize on the moment?
The industry changes afoot can still be a broader growth driver for indies, if the agencies can better meet the moment than their Holdco creative competition. Indie agencies need to be:
- Ready: Clearly positioned with a clear frame of reference. Websites that are prospect-friendly.
- Memorable: Build reputations for deep expertise and helping clients achieve their business objectives with cornerstone content and related tactics that drive awareness.
- Findable: Show up where and when a prospect is looking for a new agency.
Footnotes for Those That Love Sources
- Brian Wieser, Madison and Wall, quarterly tracking of the Top 30 largest privately held independent agencies.
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/ai-and-how-to-tell-what-will-actually - 2Q25 independent growth (~2%) via Madison and Wall,
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/wpp-ceo-news-and-guidance-reduction;
holding-company comparison (~1%) via Agency Business,
https://agencybusiness.substack.com/p/luz-corona-on-how-campaign-us-is - 3Q25 Top 30 independents grew 2.7%. Madison and Wall,
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/the-trade-desks-evolution-googles - 4Q25 Top 30 independents grew 2.9%, “well ahead of HoldCos.” Madison and Wall,
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/ai-and-how-to-tell-what-will-actually - Full-year 2025: private independents ~2% vs.public holding companies 0.5%. Ad Age,
https://adage.substack.com/p/the-ad-industry-isnt-doing-as-bad - “A percentage point or two better,” with US-skewed data caveat. Co:definery, “The Immortal Life of Agencies,” Ep. 58 (Dec 23, 2025),
https://www.codefinery.com/podcast_episode/episode-58-olivia-morley-and-brian-wieser/ - Methodology and scale caveats (LinkedIn headcount as revenue proxy; top 30 combined smaller than Interpublic; top 300 ≈ IPG + Omnicom; top 3,000 ≈ + Publicis). Co:definery, Ep. 58,
https://www.codefinery.com/podcast_episode/episode-58-olivia-morley-and-brian-wieser/ - April 2026 report built on a proprietary data set of 17 publicly traded agency groups plus hundreds of private independents. Madison and Wall,
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/agency-industry-forecast-and-overview - Private independents represent roughly two-thirds of the US agency business. Ad Age,
https://adage.substack.com/p/the-ad-industry-isnt-doing-as-bad - AI not yet gutting revenues; in-housing ~10% of total agency-related work. Ad Age,
https://adage.substack.com/p/the-ad-industry-isnt-doing-as-bad - US agency growth ~1.5% (2025) vs. ~2% (2024) vs. 4–6% (2011–2019), ~2%/year outlook. Madison and Wall,
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/agency-industry-forecast-and-overview - Performance-based media agencies “growing much faster than everyone else.” Madison and Wall,
https://madisonandwall.substack.com/p/the-trade-desks-evolution-googles - Direct quote on media vs. creative vs. PR divergence. Co:definery, “The Immortal Life of Agencies,” Ep. 58 (Dec 23, 2025),
https://www.codefinery.com/podcast_episode/episode-58-olivia-morley-and-brian-wieser/ - Structural argument on media consolidation vs. creative fragmentation (Olivia Morley, endorsed by Wieser). Co:definery, Ep. 58,
https://www.codefinery.com/podcast_episode/episode-58-olivia-morley-and-brian-wieser/ - PR decline attributed to budget migration into influencer agencies; Wieser calls it “the best theory I’ve heard.” Co:definery, Ep. 58,
https://www.codefinery.com/podcast_episode/episode-58-olivia-morley-and-brian-wieser/ - Aggregate independent outperformance. Madison and Wall / Ad Age,
https://adage.substack.com/p/the-ad-industry-isnt-doing-as-bad - Media agencies “doing well everywhere,” including holding-company media networks. Co:definery, Ep. 58,
https://www.codefinery.com/podcast_episode/episode-58-olivia-morley-and-brian-wieser/ - Independent creatives winning business but revenues “not necessarily collectively any better off.” Co:definery, Ep. 58,
https://www.codefinery.com/podcast_episode/episode-58-olivia-morley-and-brian-wieser/ - PR “struggling everywhere.” Co:definery, Ep. 58,
https://www.codefinery.com/podcast_episode/episode-58-olivia-morley-and-brian-wieser/
Steve Boehler, founder, and partner at Mercer Island Group has led consulting teams on behalf of clients as diverse as Ulta Beauty, Microsoft, UScellular, Nintendo, Kaiser Permanente, Holland America Line, Stop & Shop, Qualcomm, Brooks Running, and numerous others. He founded MIG after serving as a division president in a Fortune 100 when he was only 32. Earlier in his career, Steve Boehler cut his teeth with a decade in Brand Management at Procter & Gamble, leading brands like Tide, Pringles, and Jif.
Mercer Island Group helps marketers and agencies succeed. Company leadership is as much at home with marketers and their C-Suites as in an agency’s boardroom. With marketers, Mercer Island Group is a top 5 agency search consultancy covering all types of agency relationships (creative, media, web, PR, experiential) and assists marketers with marketing organization structure, workflow and critical skill development (briefing, creative evaluation & feedback, etc.). The company also supports leading and aspiring agencies with positioning, pitch and strategy training and pitch support.