How Agencies Can Keep Growing in 2025 and Beyond: Use the Three-Legged Stool

By Jeb Brown

The advertising business has never been predictable, but in 2025, the ground is shifting faster than ever. Clients are cautious, the economy is unsteady, and artificial intelligence has changed the landscape overnight. Some days it feels like the rules we grew up simply don’t apply anymore.

So how does an agency keep growing in times like these?

It comes down to what I call the three-legged stool. If one leg is weak, you start to wobble. If two are weak, you fall over. But if all three are strong, you’re balanced and moving forward. The legs are organic growth with existing clients, winning new business, and mergers and acquisitions.

Organic growth is the most reliable. It’s always easier to expand with clients you already have than to land new ones. The key for any agency, large or small, is showing up with a broad set of capabilities. Maybe the door opens with a branding campaign, an event, or PR. But the real opportunity is expanding that relationship by drawing from your quiver of capabilities: digital, strategy, research, podcasts, websites and now more than ever, data analytics. The modern media environment is infinitely fragmented, and clients need partners who can help them navigate it. Agencies that cross-sell services deliver more value and build stronger ties with clients.

The second leg is winning new business. No agency survives without it, but the competition today is more intense than ever. Federal work is largely about RFPs and compliance. Commercial work still comes down to people—referrals, introductions, and relationships. The danger comes in trying to chase everything. You can’t. The agencies that win are disciplined, focusing on the industries in which they’re strongest, and resisting distractions. New business will always be streaky—you win big one year and go cold the next. The point is to keep swinging, and at the right pitches.

The third leg is mergers and acquisitions. Over the course of my 50-year career (and I kind of can’t believe I’m writing that), I’ve been involved in more than 75 deals—buying, selling, merging, including three in 2025 with Yes& alone. In the old days, acquisitions were about geography. You bought a shop in Boston or Philly, and they ran separately, focusing on local business like auto dealerships and government agencies. I used to joke that managing that network was like having 13 kids—someone’s always sick. I spent half my life on planes, traveling to put out fires.

Today, geography doesn’t matter. Yes& is based in Alexandria, has staff in 32 states and five time zones, and our CEO lives in Los Angeles. This year, when we bought a creative shop in Atlanta called Hothouse, instead of running it independently we integrated it fully. Their people now work on our accounts, and ours on theirs. That’s the model: not silos but one agency. Integration isn’t easy. Every acquisition brings its own challenges with culture and systems—but when you take the time to blend the components properly, the payoff is huge.

And then there’s the wild card: artificial intelligence. I see AI as a tool that can deliver a 75% solution quickly. For some clients, that’s enough. But it can’t replace human creativity or intuition. AI can remix what’s come before, but it can’t break new ground. The bigger issue is what it does to the career ladder. That’s a challenge we can’t ignore. Entry-level jobs in writing, research, or production are where people learn the business. If AI eliminates too many of those, how do we train the next generation?

The answer isn’t to fear AI, but to use it wisely—accelerating the grunt work, organizing ideas, supporting the brainstorm—without mistaking it for a replacement. The agencies that thrive will be the ones that combine AI’s efficiency with human judgment and imagination.

Growth is not optional. If you’re not growing, your best people leave. Talented professionals want bigger challenges and fresh accounts. Without growth, an agency stagnates.

That’s why the three legs matter. Organic growth builds depth. New business builds breadth. M&A builds capability and resilience. Together, they balance and reinforce one another.

2025 is uncertain, but uncertainty doesn’t mean you stop growing. It means you grow smarter. If you attract the best people and get them to play well together, you’ll win more than your share. But you can only do that if you’re building an agency that grows. The three-legged stool is how agencies keep their balance—and keep moving forward.

Jeb Brown is the Chairman of Yes& Agency.

Source: Yes&

  Agency, growth, Jeb Brown, Opinion Piece, Yes&