Amy Jordee Photography.
The Brisbane agency market saw more advertising dollars slide south in 2025, according to industry figures speaking at AdNews L!VE.
“This last year was a wrecking ball,” said founder of Flip, and Khemistry director, Andrew Welstead.
“And for a lot of the agency folks here in Brisbane, I think pretty much first half of the decade has been that way.”
The local market generally talks about a southern drift during a normal year, but in 2025 southern states actively stepped in to take work that would traditionally be handled in Queensland.
With it, the centre of gravity pulled budgets, jobs and momentum despite more creatives relocating north.
Welstead was speaking to a slide: "In 2025, Brisbane has lost more agencies from our industry than the last 10 year combined."
In 2018, the average marketing spend was 11.2% of parent revenue and in 2025 it was at 7.7%.
“Those missing percentage points don't evaporate,” Welstead said. “They get reallocated.”
"If you felt like everything's got narrower, faster, cheaper, somehow more expensive at the same time, you're not imagining it. And having an agency on smaller end of town, it really felt hard."
Welstead described a shift to more project-based work in the market.
“Retainers used to flatten the curve … you can actually hire, train and keep a team for five different projects.
“But today most briefs are just one off pitches. People are squeezed and stressed.”
He was speaking at a session called: Khemistry’s Reboot: What Every Agency Can Learn, a powerful demonstration of how fast-thinking Brisbane players are bouncing back.
Welstead purchased the Khemistry name, and took on staff, when the agency got pulled under with the collapse of GrowthOps.
The first couple of days back in business were terrifying, according to Khemistry managing director Kelly Brightwell.
The team, with some already gone to jobs at other agencies, was left without accounts. Most work had been scooped up by others when they heard of the collapse.
“Inbox zero is an absolutely beautiful aspiration until it's thrust upon you,” she said. “But we were together.”
Brightwell said she was told the value of an agency is not in the name on the door, it's in the people.
“Our restart team was fantastic,” she said. “There was no egos, no drama, just a group of people really committed to breathing life back into Khemistry, everyone was willing to roll up their sleeves and make it happen.”
It was tempting to take on any project but the team made a really deliberate decision to double down on the agency’s strengths, to tighten focus on work anchored in behavioural science.
“Our focus on delivering creative effectiveness is the reason that clients come to us, and it's why clever people want to work for us. We are not a production company. We are not a technology company. We are experts in human behaviour” Brightwell said.
“We embraced a lean and more flexible structure, and then we invested time in building really trusted partnerships with incredible specialists that can help us bring our solutions to life and deliver better outcomes for our clients.
“There's no doubt we're still in the rebuilding phase. Khemistry looks a little different these days, but we've managed to keep the agency soul and build a new agency around what we do best.”
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