Why Billion-Dollar Brands Are Ditching Big Agencies
Last week
we wrapped up a product launch video series for a $16 billion video game and console maker. This week, we started a new engagement with a $6.8 billion software and AI company.
Our team? Less than 10 people.
While agency holding companies announce another round of layoffs, something remarkable is happening. Billion-dollar brands are quietly walking away from the big shops. They’re betting on small, agile creative production companies for their futures.
Industry experts delcared 2025 “The Year Of Independent Ad Agencies.” GM, Häagen-Dazs, Liberty Mutual Insurance and many other huge brands have recently turned to shops with fewer than 100 employees. These aren’t experimental side projects. These are major brand campaigns going to teams that fit in a conference room.
The $16 Billion Wake-Up Call
We’re delivering a complete product launch campaign for one of the world’s largest gaming companies. Multiple hero videos, dozens of cutdowns, localized versions,accessibility files, compliance versions. We’re working on a new product launch for one of the world’s largest gaming companies. The full campaign requires multiple hero videos, dozens of cutdowns, localized versions, accessibility files, compliance versions. Thousands of assets. The entire campaign, from concept to delivery will take less than six weeks. And we can deliver in half that time.
When I was the client, it used to take the agency more than a quarter to generate a launch campaign. On week six we’d be on round two of moodboards.
New clients always ask, “how is this possible with a team this small?”
Simple. We don’t have account directors managing account supervisors who brief associate account executives. We don’t have strategy teams creating decks justifying strategy. We don’t have meetings about meetings.
Here’s the truth. it’s easier with a team our size.
We scale up with jobs. Scale back down when the gig’s over.
We use trusted freelancers and contractors so there’s no pink slips and tears. Just, high-fives and see-ya-next-times
We just make stuff.
The Dirty Secret About “Capabilities”
Brands like Qualcomm and Nike are finding they can often skip the agency completely, and work directly with production companies. But it goes deeper than that.
Traditional agencies subcontract the actual asset creation to production companies like ours anyway. They’ll charge you $2 million for a campaign, then hire us for $400K to create and manage all the deliverables. You’re paying for the privilege of playing telephone.
Sure agencies add value, but that much?
Some CMOs worry that a shop our size couldn’t handle the complexity. The irony is? Many of those big agencies hand off exactly that work to companies like Wild Gravity.
We’re the ones who actually create and manage the tens of thousands of assets for Microsoft, Amazon, and other billion-dollar brands, even when another agency creates the concepts.
Small Is Eating Big’s Lunch
Clients are looking for optimization and cost-cutting. They are demanding that we measure twice and cut once. Smart brands are realizing they can get better work, faster timelines, and direct access to senior talent for a fraction of what they’re paying the holding companies.
At Wild Gravity, every client works directly with the people actually making their stuff. No account teams. No junior creatives. No one asking if we can “run this up the chain” before making a simple change.
The New Reality
Research shows brands are looking for more centralization (53%), flexibility (45%) and simplified services (37%) from their agencies.
This shift indicates that holding companies are now contending with specialized independent agencies that are continuously evolving to meet client expectations.
Small agencies are winning because we can do what big agencies have forgotten how to do: make great creative quickly without all the bureaucracy.
The future belongs to small teams of senior professionals who can move at pace.