The global creative industry is once again descending on the Croisette for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. And if the last six months have taught us anything, this year will not look like the years past: not in Cannes, not in boardrooms and not for the agencies and talent that have been quietly operating by a different set of rules.
Open any industry trade publication and the headlines tell the same story: another merger, another consolidation, another historic agency name being absorbed into a larger network. We are seeing it with major moves—like the most recent merger of Ketchum and Golin. The merger eliminated thousands of positions across holding companies. After an average 8% headcount cut in 2025, Forrester now forecasts a 15% reduction in 2026. One global holding company CEO has already said the quiet part out loud: "By 2028, we'll double profits and halve the people."
Even the physical symbols are shifting, with WPP handing its coveted Miramar Beach space to PMG, an independent. This is not a rough patch, but a structural reckoning that has been coming for a while.
Old School Is the New School
Here is what the industry is slowly, and somewhat painfully, figuring out: the future looks a lot like the past. Not the bloated holding company past, but the version that existed before scale became the only metric that mattered. It is a model built on relationships, accountability, straight talk and work that is not forced through a formula.
The agencies growing right now are not necessarily the biggest or the ones that automated the fastest. They are the ones that went back to basics and never lost sight of what clients need: people they trust, work that delivers and a partner who picks up the phone.
That is the premise a new generation of independent agencies has been built on. Like-minded independents are proving that impact does not have to come with unnecessary overhead, endless layers or a model that mistakes size for strength. The idea is simple, but for a long time it felt countercultural—a big-agency mindset with a smaller, smarter footprint.
For us, that means not carrying what clients do not need. It means not routing every challenge through the same internal machinery. It means building the relationships that make the work land, knowing a client's business well enough to call with an idea before they call with a problem and giving clients direct access to the people shaping the strategy.
That is the advantage of this model: lean enough to move fast, trusted enough to go deep and connected enough to go big when the moment calls for it. The bet that I made in 2019 when I started my agency was not a gamble. It was foresight.
The industry was not ready for that conversation a few years ago, but it is having it now out of absolute necessity. The macro market data is proving it.
According to the 2026 O'Dwyer's Independent PR Firm Rankings, the independent sector collectively pushed combined fee income to $4.8 billion—and out of the 140 top independent firms surveyed, nearly a third posted double-digit growth gains. A 2025 joint study by the ANA and 4As tells us why: clients stay with independent agencies an average of 7.3 years, compared to just 5.8 years at holding company agencies—a gap that speaks directly to what clients actually value when the pressure is on.
Every consolidation announcement, every round of layoffs and every holding company CEO talking about doubling profits by halving people only confirms what those numbers already show.
Two Visions for the Future of PR
Two models are competing for the future of this industry. The first: holding companies that have spent years treating PR as something you throw in for free to close a media buying deal. And, the second: independents where communications is a genuine area of expertise, integrated into the larger marketing plan, more culturally intelligent and tied to real business outcomes.
The independent model also provides the opportunity for new and different collaborations. Since the beginning, my agency has sought out these types of partnerships and next week [at Cannes Lions], we plan to announce a new one with a major advertising agency, who is bringing our agency on to serve as their corporate PR and issues management partner. Together, the partnership represents a modern model designed to help brands navigate increasingly complex cultural, political and reputational environments.
That kind of model matters even more as AI intensifies the pressure on brands. Clients are already navigating a volatile market, a fragmented media environment and a cultural landscape that can shift by the hour. Now AI is adding even more speed, volume and uncertainty to the mix. That makes communications more important, not less. Clients need partners with human judgment to separate action from noise, understand what is real, what matters and what a brand should do next.
None of this requirs a bigger headcount or a bigger holding company. It requires betting on people over scale—on judgment, relationships and instinct that no consolidation strategy can manufacture. Every independent firm making that same bet is proving the same point: this was never really about size. It was about what the work actually requires.
As the global creative community gathers on the Croisette next week, the agenda will officially be set. But independent agencies, defined by lived expertise and direct collaboration, are already rewriting what comes next.
Jennifer Risi is Founder and President of The Sway Effect.