• by Tim Condon , Op-Ed Contributor, October 21, 2015

When competing for and retaining top talent on a national level against the size and scale of publicly-held holding company agency networks, you'd think smaller, independent agencies would be at a distinct disadvantage. 

After all, the holding company agencies offer a lot of luster with big-budget brands and sky-scraping office space. But, now, in this digital age of Millennials with changing attitudes about life and work, independent agencies have some powerful advantages when it comes to recruiting top talent.  

Financial Independence

The agency networks tend to be sprawling publicly-held bureaucracies laden with debt from acquisitions, high-cost real estate, and demanding outside shareholders, many of who have little understanding of or appreciation for a creative business. This can drive a quarter-to-quarter mentality that can negatively affect the agency's most precious resource––its talent.  And that ultimately affects clients. 

The agency business is driven by talent. People. And if talented people are considered part of a percent-of-overhead equation, that doesn't foster an environment that inspires great work.

Independent agencies, with no outside shareholders, are able to operate nimbly with a long-term, creatively-driven, people-driven perspective.  If your business is all about talented people, they should be at the center of every decision you make. And when you're not consumed with hitting the parent company's numbers for the quarter, you can put your people first. 

Legacy Independence 

Built on a legacy of traditional mass media advertising, the big agency networks have grown their offerings outside of traditional advertising, by and large, through acquisitions. This makes true, single-minded integration across brand touchpoints a challenge.  Because of buyout contracts and aggressive revenue schedules that acquisitions (and all others in the network for that matter) need to deliver, the silo effect can be reinforced. Revenue takes over as the top priority, limiting the interest in collaboration across disciplines such as PR, social media and web/mobile development. 

Conversely, independents' resources are typically organically grown and integrated across AOR disciplines within a single P&L. Social media, PR, mobile, web development and content are all part of a client-centric continuum of assets, not divergent business units fighting against each other with separate agendas.  

Cultural Independence 

Where independent agencies may have their most distinct advantage over the holding companies is the contrast in agency cultures that manifest with the respective business models. In a 2014 Forbes article, "What Millennials Want in the Workplace," Jamie Gutfreund, chief strategy officer for CAA's Intelligence Group, is quoted on that company’s study on Millennials: "88 percent prefer a collaborative work-culture rather than a competitive one," and that same number "wants 'work-life integration,' which isn’t the same as work-life balance, since work and life now blend together inextricably."  

This finding works against the scale and autocratic, big business feel of the legacy agency holding company model. That's not a slam, just an observation.  Let's face it–there are going to be protocol, policy and homogenization requirements when you're one of 20 or 50 offices under a global agency banner. And we all saw what happened when McCann bought Sterling, Cooper & Partners on AMC.

Independents are, well, independent. Their smaller, privately-held model is fast to react to market needs and desires. And if they're doing it right, they have a distinct brand personality with a heart, soul and spirit that is palpable the moment you enter their offices––which has a lot of appeal to today's Millennials. They want a vibe less like a stiff, posturing professional-services firm and more like an inspired start-up with the spirit of a scrappy over-achiever. A place that’s dog-friendly, where the best space and window views go to the community, not to executive offices.  

And where mutual success and work-life balance for its team are the goals instead of hitting revenue and profit numbers for Wall Street.