My ex-mother-in-law once asked me if I’d rather have 1% of the effort of 100 people or 100% of the effort of one person. I instinctively chose the latter. She was firmly in the former camp. Conclude whatever you wish from that story.
Here’s the truth: We’ve all been lied to. There is no safety in numbers. There is only the illusion of safety in numbers.
The larger the team, the more individual accountability disappears. And deep down, we all know that brilliant, history-making teams are not built by individuals each collecting a fragment of responsibility. They are built by deep commitment from a small few.
Running large global accounts inside holding company agencies did not challenge my belief about scale and success. It confirmed it.
My epiphany was that the machine sold scale, but the work always got better when I built smaller teams inside it.
Here’s a proven example: Several years ago, a remarkably challenging Lexus brand campaign was crawling through the agency. It was led by a large team that had been wrestling with it for months. Time was running out. Quickly. And the chief creative officer asked me to help. I hand-selected a team of five and we cracked it over a long weekend.
That was the work that sold. That was the work that drove the business outcome the brand needed. That was the work of a small, focused team.
Over time, project after project, the evidence that small was mightier than big became harder and harder to ignore. And I am far from the only one to reach the same conclusion.
The shift
If you are a CMO or part of a marketing team, you have undoubtedly felt this shift too.
On the accounts I ran, the brand-side team was almost always tiny, while the agency-side team far outnumbered it. The ratio was 10:1 or higher. Anyone reading this, on either side of the relationship, will recognize the truth in that imbalance.
A large team does not necessarily lead to more progress. It results in more people between the problem and the people who can solve it. And that’s a problem all its own.
Of course, every team is made of individuals. Who they are and what they add demands as much scrutiny as how you solve the problem.
On my teams, I recruited for strategic smarts, creativity, taste, judgment, optimism, hard-won experience and a make-good-shit-happen attitude. “Small” was never the only defining characteristic. Talent was. Which gets me to the case for the startups and upstarts: the newly minted, founder-launched, creative-led indies, collectives and microagencies.
Because the real talent hasn’t left the industry. It’s left the HoldCos.
The old logic was predictably simple: small brands hired small ad agencies, medium brands hired medium agencies and large brands hired large agencies.
Today, that logic is obsolete.
In 2026, the best small ad agencies are not smaller by limitation. They are smaller by design.
These upstarts are founded by people with deep experience running large global brands. They know what works. And what does not. They understand the world of brands, but also the world of CMOs: boardrooms, legal teams, procurement departments, corporate politics and all the internal pressure that comes with the job.
Disciplined smallness creates an advantage: a higher standard of talent, simpler process, greater proximity, more speed, more seniority, sharper accountability and the right kind of motivation. Whereas traditional agencies are built to protect their scale, not to question it. They staff, work, think and bill accordingly.
I know you’ve already done that math.
Does that mean every CMO who reads this should fire their big agency and hand all their business to a small ad agency? No. Scale alone is not good or bad. Unexamined scale is the challenge.
Brands need to stop defaulting to agency models and start diagnosing their problems with precision. Some challenges require infrastructure. Some require speed. Some require senior judgment, creative firepower or specialist depth.
The job is to match the team to the problem. Then hire the most brilliant solution, not the most populated org chart.
Why small ad agencies succeed
If you have ever been in the room when a small, brilliant, focused team is pitching, you know small ad agencies show up ready to win.That’s because every win matters. They don’t have the luxury of settling for an okay outcome. They don’t have more teams to throw at the problem. They may not even have their next project lined up. And that makes them hungry to make your project matter.
Not for the machine. Not for the multimillionaire CEO. For you. For your brand. For the outcome in front of them.
They are not small because they have not succeeded yet. They are small because they believe in a different model: one designed around focus, accountability and proven impact.
Bottom line: The world has changed. Small agencies are now a legitimate alternative to the bloat of large agencies. They’re confident, capable and credible enough to take on serious business challenges.
Because the best answer was never more headcount.
It was always the right few.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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