"Obviously, procurement pressure is increasing and scopes are decreasing," said Jason Harris, co-founder and CEO of independent agency Mechanism, pointing out that"The recent mergers of iconic shops — most which no longer have the equity of their founding names — show that it can happen to any and all of us."
"The amount of effort to win an assignment needs to be adjusted to the size of the potential win — we can't do three-to-six month, multi-round reviews with spec work for assignments that only pay the winning agency," he said."The math doesn't work."While some fear that the closing down of Barton F. Graf signals doom for other independent agencies, others remain optimistic.
Independent shops Red Tettemer O'Connell + Partners and Stink Studios said they have done exactly that. Stink Studios has leaned on project-based work, which lets it hedge its bets by working with a variety of clients, CEO Mark Pytlik said. None of the agency's clients accounts for more than 8% of its total billings, he said.RTO+P created a content creation unit called wakeandmake.