Large Agencies
The structural difference between a small studio and a large agency shapes everything who makes decisions how fast ideas move and what kind of work gets made.
Small studios tend to operate with flat hierarchies and general roles. The founder often leads creative directly everyone touches the work and the output tends to have a singular distinctive voice. Large agencies by contrast, have separate strategy and production teams with multiple layers of approval and specialists who own parts of the process.
Wieden+Kennedy ‘Nike’ : Their long-standing relationship with Nike demonstrates the agency model at its strongest. Dedicated account teams, strategists, art directors and copywriters collaborate on campaigns of a scale no small studio could resource. The “Just Do It” platform has been sustained across decades through this structure. (Follow on from Assignment 1)
In-house teams vs. independent studios
One of the most significant shifts in the last decade has been brands building serious in house creative teams not just to cut costs, but to own their creative output more completely.
Spotify Wrapped : Spotify’s internal creative team produces Wrapped entirely in-house a campaign that has become a global cultural moment year after year. The depth of brand familiarity and data access only an internal team can have is central to why it works. No external agency could have that intimacy with the product.
