How startup thinking is reshaping ad agencies

The advertising industry witnessed a seismic shift as Omnicom and IPG revealed plans for a $13.3 billion merger, creating the world’s largest advertising holding company. The deal brings together iconic agencies including BBDO, McCann, DDB, and MullenLowe under one roof, fundamentally reshaping the competitive landscape. 

The combined entity would control $71 billion in billings and secure a 32% market share among the new “big five.” In comparison, WPP holds 28% and Publicis 24%, according to reports.

For mid-sized and independent agencies watching this unfold, the message was clear: get bigger, get smarter, or get left behind. As agency leaders are left wondering how to compete against such consolidated power, they can borrow a playbook from an unlikely source: startups.

Over the past two years, a quiet revolution has been taking place in the advertising industry. Agencies are adopting startup methodologies, from employee stock ownership plans to IPO strategies, pivoting to agile operations and strategic roll-ups, as business survival strategies. The results are reshaping what it means to run an advertising business in 2025.

When employees become stakeholders

One of the biggest issues in the advertising industry is retaining talent. The statistics around agency talent retention paint a grim picture. Roughly 34% of organisations in India struggle to find the right talent and retain them, according to a talent trends report from 2024. The industry has the lowest median tenure, with employees staying just 2.8 years on average, while agencies face annual turnover rates exceeding 30%. But what if agencies could offer something that could solve a part of the problem? 

Earlier this year, Talented, an independent creative agency, made an announcement: they were offering employees the option to convert vested equity into immediate cash at a 4.5x premium; a move virtually unheard of in creative agencies. This reimagined how agencies could structure employee relationships.

At Social Samosa’s AgencyCon 2025, Binaifer Dulani, founding partner and creative at Talented, shared that the agency is now upwards of 20% employee-owned, with ESOPs extended to 50% of their workforce. But the innovation goes beyond simple equity distribution. "Do great work, get great sleep," Dulani explained, describing the agency's foundational philosophy that rejects the industry's traditional burnout culture.

The practical implementation reveals the depth of this transformation. Talented has instituted a minimum guaranteed pay of Rs 8 lakh annually for all employees, paired with a profit-sharing mechanism called 'Founders Pool'. More significantly, the agency replaced annual performance reviews with quarterly conversations, which Dulani called 'Quarterly Performance Reviews (QTPRs)', ensuring continuous feedback and development.

The impact on client relationships has been transformative. When employees own equity in the business, client meetings shift from service provider dynamics to partnership conversations. As Dulani noted at AgencyCon, client interactions now feel like meetings with co-owners rather than hired vendors. This psychological shift affects everything from strategic thinking to execution quality.

For agencies considering similar models, Dulani's approach offers a clear roadmap. The key lies in making ownership meaningful rather than tokenistic. This means creating transparent valuation processes, establishing clear vesting schedules, and most importantly, providing actual liquidity options for employee shareholders. The quarterly review system ensures that ownership comes with accountability, while the minimum pay guarantee removes financial stress that might compromise creative thinking.

When agencies offer genuine wealth creation opportunities alongside creative fulfilment, they can attract and retain talent that might otherwise migrate to startups or technology companies.

Going public in a private industry

While Talented experiments with private ownership models, other agencies are taking the startup trajectory to its ultimate conclusion: public markets. The trend is gaining momentum across India's advertising landscape. Bright Outdoor Media, with 44 years in out-of-home advertising, launched its IPO in March 2023, observing a net profit of INR 6.03 crore in the quarter ended December 2023.

While Crayons Advertising, the homegrown integrated advertising agency, went public in May 2023, clocking a 147.61 times subscription worth INR 4,104.67 crore, followed by other agencies are exploring similar paths. This demonstrates that even traditional media companies could access public markets for growth capital. The shift tells a story: Bright Outdoor didn't own a single LED screen before going public, but within a year owned 25 LED screens, representing one-fourth of total LEDs in its operating markets.

Aditya Jangid, Managing Director, AdCounty Media India Ltd., navigated this journey successfully, taking his adtech company public on BSE SME in June 2025. The experience taught him that the transition from private to public requires fundamental operational shifts. "The most significant change is transparency and accountability," Jangid explains.

"Once you're public, you are not just accountable to the marketplace, clients, and team - but also an even broader community of investors who expect consistency, accuracy, and value in the long run."

• Aditya Jangid

The preparation for public listing demands three foundational elements, according to Jangid's experience. First, adtech companies and ad agencies need an established, defensible business model capable of adapting to technological changes, privacy regulations, and evolving client needs. Second, they must demonstrate reliable revenue streams with operational predictability, with consistent performance across multiple, durable income sources with healthy margins. Third, robust governance and compliance systems become non-negotiable, ensuring business transparency and regulatory adherence.

For agency and adtech leaders evaluating IPO potential, the current market context offers both opportunities and warnings. AdCounty Media's listing success, with shares debuting at a 52.94% premium, demonstrates investor appetite for well-positioned adtech companies. However, the broader IPO landscape remains volatile, with market conditions requiring companies to highlight not just growth potential but operational discipline and financial predictability.

The strategic advantages of public listing extend beyond capital access. Jangid notes, “Going public gives us more than capital — it gives us credibility. It gives us access to partnerships, global talent, and technology investment we need to accelerate our growth roadmap.”

For adtech companies specifically, this positioning enables competition on multiple fronts: leveraging local market expertise against global networks while maintaining agility advantages over newer competitors, backed by public market credibility and financial resources.

Strategic acquisitions in the age of giants

The advertising industry's consolidation wave extends far beyond the Omnicom-IPG merger. The combined entity creates the largest player with $71 billion in billings and 32% market share among the ‘big five’, but this reshuffling affects the entire ecosystem. Publicis has been particularly acquisitive, strategically acquiring data company Epsilon, commerce platforms CitrusAd and Profitero, and creator marketing firm Influential.

For mid-sized agencies, this raises an existential question: how do you compete when your competitors are getting exponentially larger?

Chandni Mehta, Founder & COO of FCB Kinnect, offers a different perspective on scale and integration. Her agency's successful integration with the FCB network demonstrates that strategic roll-ups can preserve entrepreneurial DNA while accessing global resources. The key, according to Mehta's experience, lies in approaching integration as a partnership rather than acquisition.

"A roll-up only works when there's genuine respect for each other's culture, strengths and ways of working," Mehta explains. The FCB-Kinnect integration succeeded because it functioned as what she describes as a marriage of equals, with each party contributing distinct capabilities: FCB brought global scale, operational rigour, and deep brand thinking, while Kinnect contributed platform agility, digital instinct, and new-age approaches.

The practical mechanics of this integration offer lessons for other agencies facing acquisition opportunities. Rather than homogenising operations, the partnership amplified each organisation's strengths. Mehta's participation in the FCB Global Creative Council, which takes place twice-yearly gatherings of network CCOs, facilitates knowledge exchange without imposing uniform practices, as per Mehta.

For agency founders navigating potential acquisitions, Mehta advises, “Enter with clarity and fear. Know what matters most to your culture and your company, and be open about it. Most importantly, stay close to your people. They are the ones who carry the heart of your company forward.”

She believes that including them in the journey and giving them room to grow will help. 

The broader strategic lesson involves recognising that scale alone doesn't guarantee success in integrated agencies. The companies thriving post-acquisition are those that maintain decision-making speed and experimental culture while accessing enhanced resources and market reach. This requires effort to preserve entrepreneurial thinking within larger operational frameworks.

The daily practice of startup thinking

Beyond structural innovations in ownership and scale, the most fundamental transformation involves how agencies operate day-to-day. Shradha Agarwal, Co-founder and Global CEO of Grapes Worldwide, has built her agency around startup operational principles from inception.

Agarwal identifies core startup traits that agencies must embrace. “Ad agencies can vastly benefit from this mindset by moving faster, focusing more on outcomes, and creating space for cross-functional thinking. Startups are more about momentum, rather than structure.”

"We are determined to stay closer to the business problem and respond quickly to change," Agarwal explains. Startups are generally inclined towards experimentation. The approach extends to client relationship management, where success metrics shift from traditional advertising measurements to business outcome focus.

Rather than reporting reach and impression metrics, Agarwal's team builds conversations around business problem solutions. “Our teams are empowered to make decisions without waiting for layers of approvals, and they are adept at various skills that help us function seamlessly. We also test ideas at smaller levels before scaling them, which eventually helps us to keep experimentation part of our daily rhythm.” 

This alignment creates more sustainable client relationships while showcasing tangible business value rather than campaign effectiveness alone.

The implementation challenges are significant for agencies accustomed to traditional hierarchies. Agarwal recommends starting with changing the leadership mindset by moving from control-based management to trust-based empowerment, eliminating unnecessary approval processes, and reducing meeting overhead that slows decision-making. 

FCB Kinnect's approach to technology integration is another critical aspect of operational agility. Mehta's decision to hire exclusively "AI-first talent" reflects that future competitiveness depends on teams inherently comfortable with emerging technologies. "I want teams that are future-ready," she states, acknowledging that early technology adoption has become essential for competitive advantage rather than a catch-up strategy.

The agencies succeeding in this environment treat innovation as a habit rather than a periodic initiative.

These startup methodologies create both opportunities and implementation challenges for agency leaders. The companies highlighted here haven't simply adopted isolated startup practices; they have systematically reimagined their business models to incorporate entrepreneurial thinking while maintaining creativity.

The lessons emerging from them guide agency leaders at any stage. The road ahead requires agencies to balance creativity with operational innovation.