If you spent the past few days wondering whether indie agencies were slowing down for spring, the answer is a firm no. Indie Agency News members have been launching full-length feature films, projecting holograms over Lincoln Center, enlisting nonagenarians to throw birthday parties for liquor brands, and — in one particularly inspired move — offering free therapy exclusively between 2 and 4 in the morning. Meanwhile, the awards circuit is hitting full stride, AI keeps reshaping every conversation it touches, and a few agencies quietly locked down new business that’ll keep them busy for a while. Here’s what you need to know.
🏆 Trophies, Shortlists, and a Six-Peat
Award season is heating up and indie agencies are showing up everywhere.
Mischief @ No Fixed Address was named to Fast Company’s World’s Most Innovative Companies list for the sixth consecutive year — 2021 through 2026, unbroken. That’s not a streak; that’s a residency.
Highdive is celebrating State Farm’s “Batman vs. Bateman” being named an Ad Age Creativity Awards finalist for Best Comedic Campaign.
LG2 jumped from 7th to 3rd place on Strategy Online’s Creative Report Card in a single year, and picked up three Atomic Awards — two silver and a bronze — in the same week.
McKinney racked up five Shorty Awards finalist nominations across Popeyes Pickle Quest, Voices of Alzheimer’s Check Mate, and two for Little Caesars. Karsh Hagan landed a Shorty finalist nod for “Into The Roundup” alongside Spotify, NatGeo/PepsiCo, and Jimmy Kimmel — not bad company. And 270B scored a Shorty finalist in Generative AI for Avocados From Mexico’s “Call Gronk on the Guacline.”
The Many picked up six MediaPost Planning & Buying Awards finalist nominations across Panda Restaurant Group, Wounded Warrior Project, and NOS Energy. Special New Zealand took home AXIS Awards Gold for the National Cyber Security Centre’s “How Exposed Am I?” digital tool. And Innocean USA saw VP/CD David Mesfin named a DEI Champion finalist at Ad Age’s Creativity Awards.
🎬 Big Swings and Bigger Screens
From feature films to holographic aliens, indie creative is going large.
Giant Spoon and Prime Video turned Lincoln Center into an alien landing site for the premiere of Project Hail Mary, staging what they’re calling a world’s-first interactive sky-scale hologram show. Strange messages interrupted media from Times Square to the outer boroughs before thousands gathered to watch the stars literally go out above Manhattan.
McKinney went all-in on long-form content with a full-length Spaghetti Western feature film for Texas Pete. Sister studio CYLNDR Studios built the Iginio Lardani-inspired title sequence, blending motion design and hand animation to recreate the stutter of 1960s hand-cranked projectors.
Rethink made Ad Age’s Top 5 Food & Beverage creative list with a Coors Light campaign celebrating the absurd lengths people go to for a perfectly cold beer.
Glow Creative Agency enlisted a 90-year-old creator to throw a legendary birthday party for Jägermeister’s 90th anniversary, reframing age as earned experience and sparking 900K+ social interactions in the process.
Mischief @ No Fixed Address launched 3am Therapy by Rula — free therapy sessions available exclusively between 2 and 4am for people awake at night wondering if they need therapy. That’s a narrow window and a precise insight.
🤖 The AI Conversation (Still Evolving)
From doctor’s offices to brand strategy, AI keeps rewriting the playbook.
Klick reported that 73% of healthcare professionals now use ChatGPT professionally, while 32% of people are turning to AI for health information. Those numbers sit at the intersection of opportunity and caution.
Lewis published a piece on brand differentiation in the age of AI, arguing that brands competing purely on performance metrics risk becoming interchangeable — to consumers and to AI systems alike.
Model B sat down with American Dream Media and Tech’s Lori Axler to discuss turning 1,200+ show hosts into a content marketing engine using AI, along with why the biggest barrier to AI adoption isn’t the technology — it’s the culture.
💼 New Business, New Chapters
Client wins, AOR upgrades, and a few reasons to pop champagne.
270B announced it’s been elevated to NatureSweet’s creative AOR after serving as the brand’s digital partner for several years. Tomatoes, incoming.
Super Nice officially partnered with WABE, Atlanta’s NPR affiliate, calling it a chance to amplify a real voice in a world of noise.
Serviceplan Group launched Hapag-Lloyd’s first international campaign with a new brand platform centered on “Your cargo, our promise” — putting quality promises at the center of how the shipping giant communicates globally.
Fohr shared results from its work with Aerie: the most recent creator campaign doubled anticipated impressions, with 78% of creators overperforming.
🧠 Thought Leadership Worth Reading
Indie voices showing up in the places that matter.
Chaos x Magic co-founder Zack McDonald sat down with Little Black Book to discuss why every project should be treated as a personal project — a lesson from his first job in advertising that still drives the agency’s creative approach.
White Rabbit Group featured Ellis Verdi, who’s spent nearly 40 years running DeVito/Verdi, on the Pixel Perfect Podcast. His take on niche positioning: it’s a lazy filter. His take on agency culture: it shows up when someone walks in with a great idea and the room just knows.
Davis+Gilbert LLP partner Allison Fitzpatrick weighed in for The Hill on recent jury verdicts finding Meta and Google’s YouTube liable for harms to children and teens — signaling that longstanding legal protections may no longer insulate platforms from scrutiny over product design.
Chameleon Collective published its Retail Trends 2026 report, noting that global ecommerce is on track to hit $6.88 trillion. The report, written by partner Farzana Nasser, digs into livestream commerce, creator partnerships, and the AI-driven infrastructure separating growth leaders from the rest.
Klick CEO Leerom Segal contributed to Fast Company’s “17 Ideas on Coaching New Managers”, highlighting radical candor, extreme ownership, and clean escalation as the foundations for building effective leaders.
👩 Closing Out Women’s History Month
Indie agencies marking the month with more than social posts.
Motive shared the numbers behind its commitment: 58% of the agency is women, all five studios are led or co-led by women, and 50% of the women on the team have been there five years or longer. That’s not a sentiment — it’s a structure.
Founders Agency COO Maru Sokolowski was profiled in PRODU, with a line worth repeating: “I think it’s important to normalize female leadership — not over-explain it, not over-celebrate it — just make it part of how we operate every day.”
Innocean USA spotlighted Nicolette Spencer in AdForum’s Lessons in Leadership series, with Melissa Moore writing: “She’s taught me that success isn’t just about results, but about integrity, consistency, and how you show up for others.”
Klick released the first installment of “Women’s Health: The Power of Potential,” noting that closing the women’s health gap could add $1 trillion to global GDP by 2040.
🌍 Global Moves and Cultural Currency
From Buenos Aires boardrooms to French billboards to Fortnite.
TogetherWith was featured in Forbes Argentina for a decision that says something about where creative power lives right now: the global network renamed its Louisville, Miami, and Toronto headquarters after its Buenos Aires agency.
mnstr deployed a nationwide OOH and DOOH campaign in France for Sidaction, using the red ribbon stretched like a tightrope to represent both the persistent threat of HIV and the importance of continued support.
House Of Rabbits went deep with HomeExchange for a campaign featured in Little Black Book — the team didn’t just tell the story, they lived the brief, becoming HomeExchangers themselves during the process.
Campfire supported the Heelys x Fortnite collaboration, marking the first time Heelys have been available inside Fortnite’s Kicks Store. Somewhere, a millennial just felt very old.
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Kyle O’Brien is managing editor of Indie Agency News.
