The leaders of Australia’s finest independent agencies believe their firms are better prepared for whatever 2026 might throw at them than they were at the start of 2025, according to new Sentiment Survey research conducted by The Savage Company, which B&T has seen exclusively.
More than 40 independent creative and full-service agency leaders were surveyed last month (including all your favourites, you can be sure), and there is an overriding sense of tempered, realistic optimism about the year ahead. That marks a noticeable shift from a year ago, Chris Savage told B&T.
“The big shift from sentiment from a year ago is that agency leaders feel their businesses are better prepared and ‘match fit’ for the substantively changed industry we operate in,” he said,
“Business operating models have been recalibrated, big changes have been made to staffing, and AI has been embraced by most.”
The Next 12 Months
More than half of the country’s indie agency bosses are forecasting “solid” growth in their clients’ spending, with two-fifths expecting no significant change in client outlay. Just under 5 per cent expect reductions in client spend or having their clients ask for more with less outlay. At the start of 2025, two-thirds of the same agency bosses believed their clients would lift spending, while just over a quarter expected flat budgets.
This year, nearly three-quarters predicted their profits (note, not client investment) would increase, with nearly half anticipating at least a 10 per cent jump. By contrast, 9 per cent expect their profits to drop between 0 and 10 per cent. One agency leader is prepping for a profit slip of more than 10 per cent.
However, when asked how their rivals would fare, some 68 per cent of agency leaders believed client spend would remain the same. Just under 10 per cent said they anticipated other agencies’ clients would lift investment.
“Last year was a massive wake-up call for indie creative agency owners. For most, it was brutal. Anecdotally, feedback suggests profitability would have been single-digit across the sector, and in many cases, that was only achieved because owners were not paying themselves market-standard salaries,” Savage said.
“A year ago, the Sentiment Survey showed indie agency leaders were what proved to be naively confident about growth prospects for their agencies, while cautioning most competitors would fare poorly. At the same time, they were nervous of disruption and transformation ahead. What happened was effectively ‘chaos’ for most. To their credit, the sector leaned into the headwinds and did the hard yards to start remodelling their businesses and offerings.”
Challenges and opportunities: one and the same?
To many, words like ‘nimble’ and ‘agile’ are fit only to be seen in management consultant slide decks. But Australia’s indie agency owners embraced them in 2025 and made difficult decisions to ensure 2026 would be better than the previous 12 months. That work has shifted the outlook.
Last year, the most pressing priority for agency leaders was the sustainability and commercial fitness of their businesses. Artificial intelligence, while a hot topic of conversation in the trade press, was a distant second. That has now shifted, with new revenue opportunities and profitability being the order of the day, neither of which is surprising given the bruising 12 months most have been through. Integrating AI into agency offerings and workflows is the third-highest priority.
“‘Disruption’ and ‘transformation’ were the big themes in last year’s research. Not for 2026. They hardly got a mention. Rather, the large majority of indie agency leaders have one burning priority for the year: profitability. The past year has been brutal for most, spent making hard decisions to recalibrate offerings, working harder than ever before, and making substantially less money,” said Savage.
“They approach 2026 in, they feel, much better shape for the needs of modern marketers, the market and staff, and are resolved to ensure their return on their investment improves. 2026 is about making money.
“The second most-mentioned priority for 2026 was the need to win new clients. Agencies cannot thrive by relying on growth from existing clients and effective and efficient new business is top of mind for most.
“This is particularly true in the face of the biggest hurdle they face, and that’s the behaviour of clients. Demands for more from less, small budgets, short-termism, scope creep, brutal procurement processes and slow payment terms are all turbulence indie agencies are grappling with. And this is compounded by the increased ‘juniorisation’ of client teams as client cutbacks have seen skilled marketers exit the business. Decision making is painfully slow, and access to decision makers is more limited than ever before,” he added.
For nearly two-fifths of agencies, reduced budgets are the chief problem with clients. More than a quarter believe that clients are asking for more with less, and a little over 10 per cent are experiencing scope creep.
That said, indie agencies are looking for more novel ways to make money (at least for agencies of their size) in the face of this turbulence.
AI, they believe, will be a boon for efficiency (perhaps especially so when combined with streamlined headcounts) and effectiveness. Now, agencies can start to reap the rewards of the hours they expended over the last 12 months. The business models of old have changed, perhaps irrevocably.
“We’ve transformed our model,” said one respondent.
“We can now do more, better,” said another.
“We’ve cut the dead wood,” said a third, with a fourth adding that their staff were “embracing the productivity challenge”.
Do As I Say
There’s plenty of doom and gloom in the trade press. So let’s end on a high note. When asked if 20-somethings should look for a career in agency land, three-quarters of those surveyed said ‘Yes’.
There were caveats:
“Yes, but you need deep tech understanding…” said one.
“There are easier ways to make money,” said another.
“Be sure what you are getting into. It’s not sexy anymore. It’s just plain hard work,” said a third.
But then again, if it were easy, everyone would do it. Wouldn’t they?
