The independent agency world — news, work, people and thinking.
Featured Lindsay Rutherford
AD&Co Has Been Quiet for 10 Years. Time to Bark.
Amy Demas' Culver City studio has spent a decade guiding fashion, beauty and retail brands through reinvention — without the smoke, mirrors or a single pitch-season brag
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Super Bowl Advertisers Spent Up to $10M Per Spot. Here’s What Happened Next (Especially With Talent)
A talent strategist on the missing Gen Z play, the AI trust gap and why no one cast the next…
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Meet Two Things: The Agency That Makes Itself Obsolete
The agency moved from Portland, Oregon to New York to be a catalyst for change, then get out of the…
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BarkleyOKRP Built a Fake Radio Station With 40 AI Songs. Here’s Why It Worked.
Their CCO explains the difference between using AI to cut corners and using it to do impossible work
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White Rabbit Goes Seven Layers Deep and the Buck Still Stops With Them
The shop has a singular focus in the agency world: to build custom sites and apps for agencies
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Everyone Needs Toilet Paper
From a memorable name to concept-first creative, this indie operates with a collective model
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Renting Music Is Costing Your Brand. Here’s What Owning It Looks Like
Two sonic branding veterans break down why agencies need to stop borrowing other people's equity
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Everyone Took Credit for the Coinbase QR Code Ad. The Freelancer Who Pitched It Didn’t. Until Now
Yuriy Mikhalevskiy tells the full story — he pitched the concept a year before the Super Bowl and got ghosted…
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No Ad School. Barely Any Experience. Typed the Script at the Airport, and It Ran in the Super Bowl.
Aisha Hakim was a permalancer making dealership banners at INNOCEAN. Her concept beat every senior team in the building and…
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TurboTax’s Client Didn’t Flinch at a Creepy Robot Baby. That’s Why the Work Was Great
Roberto Lastra on the Wieden+Kennedy culture that turned a simple tax brief into a 10-spot universe—and a Super Bowl moment…
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How a Product Stat Hijacked the Super Bowl: The Story Behind It’s a Tide Ad
Maddy Kramer takes us inside the brief nobody cracked for months, a casting call solved by a teenager and what…
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The One Question That Separates Challenger Brands From Posers
Bob Froese has turned Mike's Hard Lemonade, Popeyes and Gardein into category kings—by asking what they're willing to lose
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The New Business Problem Isn’t Getting the Meeting. It’s After It’s Over
Three consultants on why indie agencies keep filling the pipeline and starving the revenue
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Red Door Studied Its Best Work. Ideas Lost
The San Diego agency found that aligned teams beat brilliant concepts—and built a framework to prove it
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Indie Spin: The one with AI guardrails, creator economies, and why craft just became the new flex
Indie Spin: The one with prediction markets, agentic AI creative directors, and the death of free spec work
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GYK Lands the Creative Who Made a Super Bowl Ad More Viral Than the Game
Mark Philip's Gatorade Snapchat moment got more views than kickoff—now he's helping build the agency's next chapter
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AI Agents Predicting Super Bowl Spots and Other Contemporary Agency Concerns
Indie Spin: The one with agentic creative teams, AI-only social networks, and what happens when Bridgerton meets Facebook Marketplace.
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Super Bowl Sermons and the Death of Discount Culture
Indie Spin: The one with protein theology, AI litigation, and the quiet extinction of "sale" stickers
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Meet Mower: The Weirdo Underdogs Making Fierce Friends
From Syracuse to the national stage, this 100% employee-owned B2B powerhouse is redefining what it means to create meaningful brand…