What makes Joan’s creative model work, with Lisa Clunie
Plus, our weekly news discussion—DEI-driven procurement fallout, flat earnings at S4 and M&C Saatchi, and the rise of LinkedIn RFPs
Agency Business is brought to you by Brian Wieser’s Madison and Wall, in collaboration with Olivia Morley's FusionFront Media. We publish new podcast episodes every Monday at 6 a.m. eastern.
Hello and welcome to Agency Business for the week of March 31, 2025. Episode 15 is available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
Lisa Clunie, co-founder and CEO of JOAN, joins Olivia and Brian to unpack how independent creative agencies can remain resilient and grow by structuring themselves for the realities of the market—not just its ideals.
Lisa outlines the evolution of JOAN’s production model, which includes a standalone studio with its own client base, and how diversifying services across influencer, social, and production has helped buffer the business against the volatility of creative retainers. She speaks candidly about the tension between delivering great creative and protecting margins, and why she’s prioritized building a risk-resilient agency over chasing scale.
She also discusses how JOAN thinks about influencer partnerships—not as a volume play, but as tight, co-creative relationships—and why the agency has resisted building functions solely for margin, instead integrating services where they align with brand strategy. The conversation covers capital discipline, culture-fit concerns when partnering, and what Lisa sees as the real value in staying founder-owned and investor-free.
Plus, the group unpacks agency risk in a world of rising geopolitical tension, why principal media buying may not fade anytime soon, and whether brands using LinkedIn to issue RFPs is a blip or a bigger shift.
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News of the Week: Discussed in Episode 15
Trade war and U.S. policy implications for global agency operations
MW: We wrote about it in more length here. While I think agency holding companies may be one of the most durable sectors of the advertising-related industry because they can be so adaptable, some of the recent news—such as the U.S. government sending a notice to French and other EU companies (which could include at least two major holding companies) that they can’t operate with DEI policies, while the U.K.’s TfL is not including Accenture in a creative review because of its new absence of a DEI policy—is making me rethink whether global agency holding companies will be able to maintain singular global brands and operations.
FFM: Accenture joins a growing list of companies (and U.S. universities) responding to pressure from a mercurial U.S. administration. The news shows that misguided government policy can—and will—affect the agency business directly. I believe holding companies are muddying the waters with their constant flip-flopping. Many have centralized their structures and rebranded to project network-wide cohesion. But now I wonder: Isn’t it time they got clear on what they actually stand for? Establishing brand identity and values is Marketing 101. I agree with Brian—we may need to rethink whether global centralization still makes strategic sense.
S4 Capital and M&C Saatchi earnings results
MW: Both companies offered pretty muted growth expectations for 2025—roughly flat for each of them. Probably reasonable to set a low bar for this year, although the big wild card for S4 is whether or not the tech companies it’s overly exposed to start to loosen up their spending on services or tighten up further.
FFM: Flat growth isn’t necessarily bad, but compared to Publicis and Omnicom’s performance in what’s been a healthy ad economy? Well, it’s not great. Brian makes a strong point about client concentration risks, especially for a company like S4 that leans so heavily on tech clients. Personally, I continue to question how integrated some agencies truly are—and whether that affects the bottom line. The industry’s strongest performers tend to lead with deeply integrated business and tech operations.
Major brands using LinkedIn for RFPs. Random events or real trend?
MW: Call me a skeptic here. I don’t doubt that LinkedIn works for a lot of things, but if you’re a marketer who ostensibly knows marketing and you know you’re going to need to work with a service provider you trust to fix things when they go wrong (which is all the time in the advertising industry), there’s no way you’re going to rely on a platform such as LinkedIn. On the other hand, if you really just need a person—and not a company—to work on something for you, I can see that working well, much as it already does with LinkedIn’s Talent Solutions and recruiting capabilities.
FFM: I have a more nuanced take. I think it can have upsides. These kinds of LinkedIn posts can diversify a pitching pool that’s often shrouded in mystery. I generally recommend that marketers seek guidance from pitch consultants when undergoing a review—they’re experts in the process. But also, imagine a different way of pitching, where brand marketer and consultant work together to vet any surprising new contenders—opening up new connections for both sides. Call me idealistic, but sounds like a win-win for the right brands.
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