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Frustrated by changed client dynamics and the reduced role of agencies, some now former agency heads have left adland behind, reigniting their love for brand building through entrepreneurship.
Founder of recruitment company Prime Mover, Simon Hadfield, says this is not a remarkable trend with people more likely to turn to "go client side" around the five to eight years experience mark.
However, he recognises how the appeal of the creative industry has changed.
"The creative industry seems to have lost a lot of its character and well … creativity," said Hadfield.
"A lot of the big industry personalities also seem to have fallen by the wayside so overall the business just doesn’t seem as exciting, dangerous and fun as it used to be.
"It’s a fickle business and a lot of good creatives become disheartened and look for other avenues to pay their mortgage and feed their kids. You can’t blame them really."
Ex-agency heads, Lincoln Graham and Andrew Whittle, who just two months ago launched their own gender-less, sensory clothing brand Being Wear, said they became frustrated by the changing relationship between agencies and clients.
Creative collaboration and problem-solving deteriorated as clients increasingly developed their own internal teams and owned channels.
Whittle, the former managing partner of creative agency Dynamix, said he was initially attracted to the variety of brand work and being the problem-solver.
He said the "craft" of advertising declined with briefs becoming shorter and the demand for pumping out projects undermining an agency’s process.
For Graham the attraction was creative strategy, founding agency Transmarketing which later merged with Circus Group and most recently working as chief creative officer at Primary Create.
They say business models shifted, with retainers replaced by project work which made it difficult to plan and staff teams. Pitching also changed - less structured and unpaid.
"I felt that kind of shift," said Graham.
"And you know, I understand why there’s that shift, like as we know now. Brands need their own resources, internal resources, to manage their own and earn channels."
Simon Hadfield, says even network agencies have become an “afterthought”, struggling to compete for relevancy in the global market, suggesting why agency heads in the broader industry might make this career pivot.
He says that around 10-15% of talent are “looking to be more entrepreneurial and do something on their own terms.”
"If you’re a great agency leader you will eventually become beaten down, disillusioned and the obvious option is to open your own shop."
Burn-out and stress also play a significant role.
According to Whittle and Graham, their agencies went from being leaders of brand strategy, campaign planning and direction, to executors brought in later in the journey. This created what they call a “chaos” that drained agency resources and depleted efficiency.
"They’ve become more executional, more like production houses," said Whittle.
"With the rise of owned channels, clients have invested in their own internal marketing teams, which often have meant creative agencies are being brought in later, after key decisions have already been made."
The creative partnership between indie agencies and advertisers has become ‘hamstrung’ - further accelerated by the induction of AI tools to replace tasks like copywriting.
"For us, it felt like we were spiralling toward being cheaper, faster, but less considered partners. As an indie agency with a loyal local team, it got harder and harder," said Whittle.
Launching their own brand provided them with purpose again. Whittle was driven to meet a gap in the market for sensory clothing, inspired by his daughter’s own journey.
"Rather than fight within a shrinking system, we chose to channel our skills into something with purpose," he said.
These transferrable skills are negotiation, curiosity and task shifting. They also have a more hands-on approach as founders, from packing orders and cleaning warehouses to greater customer engagement.
Advertisers and marketers are perfect candidates for the life of an entrepreneur, having already developed an inside look already at what it takes to make a brand thrive and are “wired to question, research, and spot market gaps," as Whittle explains.
Entrepreneurship gives them the opportunity to play an active role in decision-making and spearhead end results.
"It’s therefore really refreshing building our own brand and being able to actually build those foundations and also experience that yes and we do need to be responsive and reactive," said Whittle.
"It’s just nice for us to play in those foundations as well as the executions."
This also offers more alignment between their careers and personal values.
"With Being Wear, we’ve built a brand that reflects our values comfort, inclusivity, sustainability while staying nimble and creative," said Whittle.
"The pressure is still real, we’re only as good as our last sale. But this time, the work creates both commercial and cultural value."
Graham calls branching out an opportunity to revisit transferrable skills and calls everyday "learning day" as they get across newer AI tools.
Launching a business from a marketing background is advantageous, ingraining an “elementary kind of process” of how to build a brand.
"It’s worked pretty well because, I mean, a start up is full of needs and issues and problems and you know to approach it in a systematic way and a way that you almost kind of approach a campaign to a client, you know is very transferrable," said Whittle.
The pay-off? A business that has garnered a supportive community through its messaging, with the duo benefiting from a more direct access to consumer needs than in previous roles.
"What’s really rewarding is to have to get a really great insight into the customer engagement across the whole spectrum," said Graham.
Others who are hungry to pursue a similar path, whether driven by the need to diversify due to uncertainties in the industry, such as redundancy rates or pure passion - should follow that curiosity, adapt and capitalise on their agency skills according to the duo.
"Don’t feel like you have to keep doing what you're always doing," said Whittle.
The duo are just one of many leaders who’ve the industry to pursue entrepreneurship.
Industry veteran, Mat Baxter, left his role as CEO of Mutinex, the marketing mix modelling platform, back in 2024 and has since launched two businesses including AI health-care company TMRW and tattoo skincare brand Skingraphica.
Baxter said he was drawn to the opportunity to take the "knowledge bank" from working with a diverse portfolio of clients, to meet another gap in the market - skincare for tattoos.
This was also a way to insure his career in response to the changing landscape with growing digital technology and AI adoption, but also, similar to Whittle and Graham, a way to overcome the limitations that building a brand for someone else brings.
"I'd sat in enough rooms throughout my 25 plus year career, giving advice on brands that weren't my brand, watching brands make decisions that frustrated me, or watching opportunity slip through clients fingers because they didn't have the bravery or the risk appetite to do things that were bold and radical and disruptive," Baxter said.
And he used this insight to go from a "servicer" to "originator".
"I was just tired of it. I was just tired of always walking in, preparing, working with very talented people to get great things happening, and always having an audience at the other end that could find reasons not to do things," said Baxter.
"And I wanted to move back into a can do culture and a can do mindset and be brave and get the original creative spirit back that I had when I entered the industry in my 20s, where I had, I had the world at my feet, and all this potential and excitement.
"And over time, that just gets whittled away. You know, little by little, because you're on the servicing end of the supply chain."
He says those still working in the industry need to also be proactive about “future-proofing” their careers and not limit themselves to one career trajectory.
"You have to be a creature of reinvention in our industry to survive,” he said.
"You have to protect your own future and your own skill set, and you've got to take your own accountability and responsibility for doing that. No one's going to do that for you."
Baxter recognises the role of employers to prepare juniors and other staff for success after their time with that agency.
"When I join a company, that company transforms me from white collar work to gold collar work, so that when I do decide to leave, I am so in demand that I have so many choices ahead of me now."
Baxter says the industry is an “enormously fertile breeding ground for entrepreneurialism” that sometimes lacks the support to get people's ideas off the ground.
He says the key to making the transition is trusting in his agency experience and surrounding himself with the right team.
"If you don't believe in yourself and your idea, everything else is an impossibility, and then it's putting the right people around you to make it happen."
Recruiter, Simon Hadfield advises people to be aware of the challenges of starting their own business, including the financial costs, hiring and culture-building. However, he says that with the right foundations their time in media will certainly be an asset.
"As our industry can be quite dynamic, most departments generally prepare you for other industries in my view. Not all sectors work at the pace and adaptability that we do which can set you up well."
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