In the 1990s, US marketers decided to reduce their ad agency bills by applying a lower agency commission on media spends. They asked their agencies to separate media bills from other advertising services. This is the origin of media specialist agencies & creative specialists.

In the 2000s, digital agencies became yet another specialist. Soon, outdoor & activation were added to the list of specialists. Over time, most large networks created single holding co. for all their media, digital & outdoor agencies.

Much later, some even created a separate holding co. for their creative / non media agencies.

Cut to today. Marketers feel the inconvenience of fragmented marketing operations, thanks to having to deal with multiple entities. Why can’t a single entity provide full-service, they may well ask? After all, the age of AI, LLM is upon us!

As digital advertising grew in size & stature, digital agencies became a major partner for Marketing. These relatively young agencies are more open to offer creative/production & tech services along with digital releases. Marketers have started offloading responsibility for delivery of entire multimedia campaigns. Some clients would even ask them to deliver marketing outcomes instead of clicks & eyeballs!

Meanwhile, IT had upgraded even faster – going from IBM mainframes to PCs to cloud based LLMs! Here’s the big picture.