Spinning Plates
Leading an agency today is a balancing act, with increasing pressures on revenue, sustainability, and margins. Written by Harry Demey (LDV United).

Leading an agency today is a balancing act, with challenges like revenue growth, sustainability, and shrinking margins. To secure our industry's future, we must focus on financial stability and nurture creative talent, working together to navigate these difficult times.
Spinning plates
Do you know that circus act where you see someone (usually a Chinese man) walking back and forth between 7 sticks with spinning plates on top, constantly rushing from left to right to keep the plates spinning? Sometimes he succeeds, but other times you see a plate falling or moving painfully slowly. A rather hectic act.
This is how I would describe the role of agency leaders today. Most can manage, but here and there you see plates falling or nearly falling. A lot is coming at us: revenue growth, margin, sustainability, self-regulation, DE&I, work-life balance for yourself and all employees, the poly-crisis, unprecedented inflation, resilience assessments from all sides, working from home or in the office, AI as a threat or opportunity….
And for those in larger groups: unprecedented pressure on margins and reporting. Because when the market is nervous, so are the men in NY, Paris, or London.
The latest profitability study by ACC is clear: agencies are struggling. More than ever before. There is no significant growth, and our margin (EBITA) has dropped to a historic low. To the extent that some agencies are experiencing cash flow problems.
It's not easy to lead an agency today. It never really was, but today it’s harder than ever. And that needs to change if we want a new generation of leaders to emerge. A new generation that creates work environments to embrace and nurture our strategic and creative talent.
There’s no magic solution for this, but we can and must work on it.
Instead of trying to keep all those plates spinning, we need to focus more. And that focus will have to be on money. If there isn’t enough of it, everything else can't be achieved. Our entire ecosystem must focus on keeping our industry sustainable.
ACC must continue to challenge with studies (profitability, hourly rates, salary study, etc.), continue to engage in dialogue about pitching (and perhaps become even more combative here), continue investing in training, and probably focus even more on the commercial side. ACC must defend our interests and advocate where necessary. A good example of this is the efforts made to make government tenders economically viable.
And UBA must take this situation seriously. A transparent and clear debate needs to be held. Advertisers must be clear about what they expect from their agency and provide a fair compensation system in return. This must be discussed, in a spirit of recognizing the added value of our profession within the economic system, and not as opposing forces.
If we want to improve, we’ll need to create the (financial) space for it.
It will be about value and values. But in that order.
We may not all be in the same boat, but we are in the same storm. And that storm will not subside on its own. We will all have to work together to weather it.
For our profession, for creativity, for talent.
For the next generation of leaders.