By Carey Finn. Four industry leaders on what stood out last year – and what lies ahead. Independence and integration stand out as key themes.
“If 2024 was about adaptation, then 2025 was the ‘Year of the Independent Agency’,” says Zahn Rossouw, senior consultant at Yardstick and head of its Johannesburg office. “Over the past 12 months, smaller, owner-managed agencies have dominated South Africa’s new business scene, winning the majority of all pitches facilitated by Yardstick, including heavy-weight South African advertiser accounts.”
Independent agencies have really found their voice, says Rossouw. “Their growing appeal lies in their nimbleness, flexibility, and quick turnaround – advantages born from being able to strip out the cumbersome, linear workflows,” she explains. “Many of these agencies bring bold, fresh creative thinking, and their strategic use of AI and technology allows them to scale ideas without compromising quality.”
Equally significant, adds Rossouw, is the agencies’ “intuitive grasp of the creator economy and the culture codes that shape today’s digital landscape”. She points to the number of “independents” producing channel-specific content that resonates authentically with online audiences; this provides “a vital edge in a market where consumers value relevance over reach”. The trend mirrors what Yardstick is seeing globally: “independent shops are thriving because they understand the nuances of community, authenticity, and speed,” says Rossouw.
Integration still matters
Rossouw says that even as independents surge ahead, the broader industry is continuing to wrestle with consolidation and integration. “Many brands still operate within multi-agency ecosystems, but the expectation is shifting,” she explains. “Increasingly, clients want their agencies not only to collaborate, but to actively lead that collaboration. Those that can choreograph cross-discipline integration, rather than simply coexist within it, are the ones winning long-term trust.”
Approaching integration from a pitching angle, Johanna McDowell, founder and CEO at Independent Agency Selection (IAS) and managing partner at SCOPEN Africa, finds that trend-wise, more pitches are fully integrated; that is, creative and media, for traditional media and digital. “Clients want integration more and more,” she says. “In the UK, 25 percent of all pitches are creative and media – ATL. We are not there yet.”
Pace slowed down
In 2025, says McDowell, there seem to have been fewer pitches than the year prior, although the first half of 2025 was a busy period for IAS, with multiple pitches of all different types. “Pitches are taking longer,” she adds. “And they are even being paused sometimes due to economic uncertainty.”
Continuing, McDowell notes that some pitches have been awarded, but then not implemented. “We have heard this from a few agencies, where things change on the client side,” she says. “Looking at Agency Scope, we see that agencies were less active in the last 18 months in their own direct approaches to new business and prospective clients. Perhaps they were waiting for RFPs?”
Global moves, local complexities
“A year ago, we saw major brand shifts across the media landscape where global moves shifted local agency dynamics, as well as mergers that were announced, which will in the near future change the media landscape again,” reflects Marvin Kgasoane, chief client officer at Connect. “My view at the time was that these brand shifts would open a whole array of challenges for those agencies, which we have seen start to play out in some spaces. The major impact of these is currently being felt in the operational space – especially around data sharing, alignment and the different planning frameworks used by each agency.”
Kgasoane refers to Unilever’s recent move to spin off its ice-cream business as a standalone business, with the appointment of another agency as the one of record for the business unit, as a shift that “further adds to an already complex structure”. Managing the coordination, integration and alignment of the moving parts and new units will be “an interesting task” for the leaders of these agencies, he says.
Shift in focus
Tanya Schreuder, CEO of Juno Media, highlights Takealot (a 2025 win for the agency), Standard Bank, Unilever, Cell C, Multichoice, and Sanlam among the major account moves of 2025 on her radar. Noting that budgets remain under pressure, she doesn’t foresee “huge budget growth” in the year ahead, “unless there is a big relaunch”.
What Schreuder does expect in 2026 is an increased emphasis on strategic partnerships. “Although pitches bring with them a drive to better cost-efficiencies and value, clients are focusing more on partnering with media agencies that can truly assist with business growth and breakthrough ideas,” she says.
New Year’s evolutions
Rossouw sees 2026 bringing a blurring of boundaries across the marketing landscape. “Independents will likely continue to grow — particularly those that invest in data, automation, and strategic partnerships, but we’ll probably also see networks reinvent themselves to stay competitive,” she says. “Trends suggest more alliances between independents and tech platforms, the rise of ‘fractional agency models’offering embedded strategic support, and greater investment in creative-effectiveness measurement as CMOs demand proof of impact, not just output.”
Ultimately, says Rossouw, the next phase of the industry will belong to those who can combine creativity, agility, and integration, regardless of size or structure. “The agencies that thrive will be the ones that think like entrepreneurs, act like collaborators, and deliver like partners,” she says.
“In my view, clients should look for more integrated solutions to their objectives and from their partner agencies,” says Kgasoane, pointing to integrated budgets, which he describes as the power of spend as opposed to a fragmented approach across various verticals, for solutions which are “tightly managed, insight-driven, collaborative, and attention-grabbing”, and which ultimately deliver results.
“The coming year, marked by further structural shifts, leadership changes, and evolving client expectations, will be telling,” he says. “It will reveal not only how marketers interpret the changing media world, but also how they expect their partners to evolve alongside it.”
Carey Finn is a contributing writer to MarkLives MEDIA and MarkLives.com.
