RIP the agency of record. Build the team the brief needs.
Clients have taken the routine work in house and are trimming agency rosters. The fixed team on retainer is the casualty. The replacement is a team built around each brief.
The agency of record was built for a world of few channels and long campaigns. One agency held the account, staffed a fixed team on a monthly retainer, and made the TV, the print and the posters. The thesis: that model is finished, but not because clients stopped needing outside talent. It's finished because a fixed bench can't keep up with work that changes shape every month. The future is a crew assembled for each job, then dissolved.
Clients already took the routine work home
The clearest data comes from the US Association of National Advertisers. Its 2023 in house agency study found 82% of members now have an in house agency, up from 78% in 2018, 58% in 2013 and 42% in 2008. The ANA expects penetration to peak somewhere between 85% and 90%.
Notice what that does to a retainer. The steady, predictable stuff, the social calendar, the resizes, the product shots, is exactly what in house teams absorb first. What's left for outside partners is the irregular work: the launch, the rebrand, the new market, the film. That's the worst possible fit for a fixed monthly fee.
And they are trimming the roster
Gartner's 2025 CMO Spend Survey of 402 marketing leaders found 39% plan to cut agency budgets. Their top cost saving moves are dropping unproductive agency relationships and streamlining rosters, followed by renegotiating contracts and scopes of work. And 22% said generative AI has already reduced their reliance on external agencies for creativity and strategy.
Budgets aren't growing to cushion this. Gartner found marketing spend flat at 7.7% of company revenue, with 59% of CMOs saying they lack the money to execute their strategy. Anything that looks like overhead gets squeezed, and a crew billing whether or not there's work looks a lot like overhead.
I spent years inside the agency of record model, and here's what it did to the craft. Retainers got stretched. Scopes kept changing. On paper, a creative team belonged to one brand, and that's what the client saw. Behind the scenes, those same people were working late on someone else's award entry. They couldn't move to work they loved, and they couldn't really leave. I saw those faces for years. Good people, worn down until the spark was gone. And I was part of it. I wrote those service agreements myself. That came with the job, and the higher you rise in client servicing, the more you're expected to build a retainer around every account.
But clients still need outside talent
It would be easy to read this as the end of agencies. It isn't. The same ANA study found 92% of respondents still use outside agencies. In house teams are great at speed, cost and brand knowledge. They're weaker at fresh perspective, specialist craft and the kind of scale that spikes for six weeks and then disappears.
So the demand hasn't gone away. It has changed shape. Clients want the right specialists for this job, at this size, for this long. A fixed bench of generalists on a twelve month contract is the opposite of that.
What a brief shaped team looks like
Start from the problem, not the roster. A fintech launch in three Asian markets needs different people from a creator programme in Brazil or a website rebuild. Pick the people after reading the brief, not before.
Honestly, the strike force idea isn't new. Holding companies have been building custom teams around big clients since Martin Sorrell's Team Detroit for Ford back in 2006. What sold us was simpler. We kept seeing brilliant people scattered across different offices, and every time we pulled them together around one project, the work got better. And the client didn't have to do the pulling together, or pay for an agency's overhead and HR. Getting the right people in the room became our job, because that's how we do right by our clients. It's as simple as the right people, with the right skills and the same passion, who love the kind of brief they've already mastered.
When I started RegenLFG, one of our very first briefs was a big event. My first instinct was to bring Amanda on board, because I knew she'd run big events before. And it proved right straight away. She was exactly the right fit for the job.
Mix senior strategy with specialist makers. A small core owns the thinking and the client relationship. Around it sit the specialists the work calls for: a director for the film, creators for the market, an engineer for the build, a local writer for the language.
Scale up and down on purpose. When the launch ends, the crew should shrink. Clients should pay for output and expertise, not for the comfort of a full bench.
Keep continuity where it matters. The part worth holding onto is memory: the brand's assets, the lessons, the relationships. That can sit with a small permanent lead, in house or outside, without a big headcount attached.
Questions for the next agency review
Which of last year's projects actually needed the same people? Which specialists did we pay for and barely use, and which did we need and not have? How much of the fee bought thinking, and how much bought availability? If the honest answers point at a mismatch, the contract structure is the problem, not the people in it.
Proof, not theory
Retainers persist because they're easy to renew, not because they're the best way to buy creativity. Every project is different, and the people on it should be too.
We don't have a resident creative director, and that's on purpose. Let's be honest, is there really a creative director who's happy being a jack of all trades? Next meeting, watch your creative director when the brief lands outside their lane. You'll see what we mean. We'd rather bring in the one who's mastered this exact kind of brief.
For us, this isn't a prediction anymore. RegenLFG has kept the lights on without a single retainer. Working project by project works both ways. The scope is clear, and how long we work together and what we're aiming for are set up front. The model hasn't just changed. It's proven it works.
FAQ
Is the agency of record model dying?
The fixed retainer version is. ANA found 82% of members have in house agencies, and Gartner found 39% of CMOs plan to cut agency budgets by trimming rosters and contracts.
Do brands still use outside agencies?
Yes. The same ANA study found 92% of respondents still use external agencies, mainly for work in house teams find hard: fresh ideas, specialist craft and short spikes of scale.
How is AI changing agency relationships?
Gartner's 2025 survey found 22% of CMOs say generative AI has reduced their reliance on external agencies for creativity and strategy.
What should replace an agency retainer?
A team built around each brief: a small senior core for strategy and continuity, plus specialists brought in for the job and released when it ends.
Related reading and work
Cliff
Writes The Monthly Ramble on AI, creativity, brand and social.
