'It's not agency fees clients hate. It's everything wrapped around them'

Here’s a question: if your company made a car which your customers consistently told you was too expensive and had loads of unnecessary features, would you:

A: Come up with an innovative new leasing agreement and assume that customers would come flooding back?

B: Change how you make the car so it’s cheaper and better?

No-one would be mad enough to suggest A). But in our crazy wonderful creative services industry, we have exactly this problem. And we think the answer is to change how we charge for what we do.

Before launching our new agency, Catbird Seat, we knew the agency model was long overdue for some major change. After all, it’s basically remained the same for as long as we can all remember.

What we didn’t know was how much clients are feeling the same. We spoke to more than 30 of them ahead of launch, and asked them, quite simply, what they value from agencies, and what they don’t.

The consistency of the answers was the first surprise. The second was the unanimity of their view that the agency model is broken - all bar one said it needs a major rethink. Which is no surprise when you consider how much their needs have changed - the vast majority now have in-house teams, work with a roster of specialist agencies, social creators, or are experimenting with AI tools.

The good news is that agencies are still of great value to them. What they love (when they can get it) is, thankfully, what we love too — senior, experienced, dedicated people working as partners to create breakthrough strategies and brilliant ideas.

Most, though, said they aren’t getting much if any of this. We heard multiple examples instead of big, layered, junior teams, agencies claiming they can “do it all”, senior people who vanish post pitch, lack of collaboration, slow processes, lack of partnership.

And most of all we heard that it costs too much. To be clear: it’s not the ideas that cost too much, it’s all the extra stuff around the edge — the layers, the lack of speed, the headaches. None of which help with great ideation, but all of which increase the cost.

We created Catbird Seat directly out of that insight — exclusively experienced, dedicated talent, offering clarity of direction and precise thinking. Enabled by agile processes and the right technology, to get to the best ideas faster. And a very different business model that actively encourages speed, advocates for brand consistency and promotes collaboration — because unlike conventional agencies, we don’t make our money from making our ideas ourselves (though we can, if the client needs us to).

All of this adds up to something very different. Something built around our belief that ideas are transformational for brands. And around what clients truly need and value from agencies today. Oh - and it costs a lot less than hiring a traditionally shaped agency too.

Are we going to solve all the industry’s problems? I doubt it. But I’m hoping that — alongside the new crop of differently shaped start-ups - we might at least begin to make the change our customers are asking for.

Larissa Vince & Andy Jex are co-founders of Catbird Seat