‘Agency’ – the word the holding groups are running from is the one they need most

Opinion

Clients need a partner that acts with agency on their behalf. So why are the Holdcos abandoning the word, leaving it to be redefined by AI in the most powerful way possible?

Something significant is happening in the boardrooms of the world’s largest marketing services groups – the word “agency” is being retired.

It’s not official, but listen to how they’re describing themselves now. We’re seeing the phrases: “growth partners”, “intelligent systems” and “unified operating companies”. This language is deliberately designed to sound less like an agency and more like a consultancy or a technology company.

WPP’s Elevate28 strategy, announced in February, is the most visible example of this.

Cindy Rose declared that WPP was no longer an agency holding company with a new mission to become “a trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands in the era of AI.”

This is a very noble ambition, but look at how the other agencies describe themselves:

* Publicis: “The connective tissue of the new advertising ecosystem. Power of One. The industry’s first AI-powered intelligent system.” 

* Omnicom (post-IPG): “Built for intelligent growth. Unified operating company. One-stop shop for global marketing solutions.” 

* Dentsu: “A true growth partner, supporting clients from strategy through to execution. One Dentsu. Integrated Growth Solutions.” 

Across these four companies and four transformation programmes, we see similar vocabulary. When every major player says the same thing, language ceases to be a differentiator and instead hinders clarity.

There is an argument that moving away from “agency” is long overdue in our industry. But having spent twenty years in senior international media leadership roles on both the advertiser and agency side, I always believed in the potential of agencies to be genuine partners to advertisers, and I was lucky enough to work with many that lived and breathed that spirit.

Sunsetting the word actually feels like the HoldCos are abandoning their legacy.

This is all about positioning

Positioning is not a rebrand or a messaging exercise; it is the strategic context in which your business is considered and chosen by customers.

Done properly, positioning is a catalysing capability for companies. It translates business strategy into powerful assets that amplify your entire go-to-market approach, sharpening how you sell, innovate and grow.

It also aligns every stakeholder the business depends upon – from clients and internal teams, to investors and a stock market that is actively reevaluating these businesses. 

A restructure is not a strategy, and a new org chart does not demonstrate positioning. None of the statements of changes made by the HoldCos answers the question a CMO asks when deciding to consolidate spend, build in-house, or stay agile between the two.

To address that context, advertisers require clear, differentiated positioning, and right now, the industry has none because they all say the same thing.

Agency is the most powerful positioning asset for the AI era

At the precise moment the holding groups are abandoning “agency,” the word is being redefined by the AI era in the most powerful way possible.

In artificial intelligence, “agency” sets a compelling expectation of behaviour: the capacity to act independently, make context-aware decisions, and execute purposefully toward specific goals.

AI agents, agentic workflows and agentic orchestration are now the architecture of how the most sophisticated organisations are beginning to operate.

In this new world, the scope to perceive an environment, reason, and act autonomously and with intent on behalf of someone else is where value is created. 

What clients need – what they’ve always needed – is a partner that acts with agency on their behalf. That positioning opportunity is rooted in real market need and inherent in how these businesses were created.

Reclaim it. Redefine it. Build on it.

An agency, in its fullest and current sense, is an organisation with the capability, intelligence and authority to act on a client’s behalf across an increasingly complex and autonomous landscape.

It perceives, reasons, and executes against goals that its client cannot achieve on its own. That is not a middleman business – it’s a category-defining role for the intelligence era.

The structural changes being made across WPP, Publicis, Omnicom and Dentsu may well be necessary for future survival, but from a positioning perspective, direction without differentiation creates limited value in your customers’ minds. And that makes these recent announcements just expensive PR activity.

In the AI era, agency isn’t a liability to manage – it’s the most valuable thing you can offer. The businesses that figure that out won’t need to tell clients they’re a trusted growth partner; they’ll just act like one.

Paul Evans is the founder and chief positioning engineer at V2RSION