Today there are relatively few fully integrated agencies, limiting options for investors wary of investing in multiple companies with disparate offerings, Alexander Jutkowitz, global CEO of Group SJR, said in a statement. Investors must consider investing in performance-focused agencies, or investing in those that prioritize brand marketing. Brainlabs, with its implicit integration and its plans to become even more so, presented an attractive third option for investors tiring of the brand and performance dichotomy.
‘We’re not competing to be the big creative ideation agency’
Brainlabs leaders tell clients it is a high performance agency, employing a number of employees with backgrounds in science, mathematics and technology. The agency has a large in-house technology team, and, according to Allan, currently creates and builds both its proprietary marketing technology, as well as technology solutions for its clients.
It’s focused on dynamic creative (DCO) integrations, technology many media agencies are investing in, with varying results. As agencies attempt to master marketing across the now-broad social media platform ecosystem, many struggle to produce the sheer amount of creative they’d need to connect directly with each target buyer. Creating effective content en mass using DCO is one way Brainlabs wants to differentiate itself from competitors.
“We’re not competing to be the big creative ideation agency … There’s Wieden+Kennedy, or whatever those great agencies are,” Allan said.
This is relatively rare for an independent agency, given their limited scale compared to holding companies. Other independent agencies, including Texas-based PMG and Horizon Media, considered the U.S. market’s largest independent, also built advanced proprietary technology stacks. Technology investments are paying off, especially for PMG, which won Nike’s U.S. business last year in large part on the strength of its Alli technology platform.
Brainlabs expects it’ll soon compete with holding companies
Over Brainlabs’ investment cycle, it will build and develop more global hubs to increase its attractiveness to larger advertisers with global reach and push beyond the eight markets it now operates in. These enterprise-level clients are, in general, concentrated within holding companies. “I could see this amazing opportunity for us to scale up the business. By scale up, I mean to work for increasingly larger enterprise-level clients,” said Allan.
Aggressive acquisition strategies do benefit agencies who can afford them. Newer holding companies like Stagwell and Media.Monks acquired other shops at a rapid pace, helping the parent companies achieve relevance and nab larger clients quicker than other mid-to-large-sized shops. Now, it’s common to see Media.Monks pitching against legacy holding companies.
Allan expect this for Brainlabs, too. “I think who we used to pitch against, versus who we are pitching, versus who we will pitch against is definitely evolving,” he said.
