Independent agencies are claiming a growing share of the industry’s recognition. This year, Rethink was named Ad Age’s 2026 Agency of the Year and won both Independent Agency and Independent Network of the Year at Cannes Lions. Last year, eight of the 11 winners of Adweek’s 2025 Agency of the Year were independent. This reflects a broader shift. Large agencies still produce great work, but size no longer directly correlates with capability.
Independent teams can compete at the highest level because of the agility that comes from keeping the right people close to the work and to their clients, rather than moving through layers, departments, and long approval chains. Strategists, designers, producers, and clients can challenge one another earlier, make decisions faster and build stronger work together.
When I started TOML Collective, the goal was not to create a smaller version of a traditional agency. It was to build something different: a collective where talent came first, creativity was respected, and collaboration was not limited by borders. Today, we have a small core team and a wider network of more than 50 creatives and partners, which allows us to assemble the right team around each brief.
In the years since our founding, these are four things I’ve learned about how a small, independent agency can move the needle faster than large agencies.
1. Clients value attention more than scale.
Scale has obvious benefits. But it can also create distance between the client, the decision-makers, and the people making the work. Clients pay for output, but they also value judgment, attention, speed, and direct access to people who understand their business. Smaller teams can make that relationship much more immediate.
2. Proximity builds trust.
We see the same principle on the client side. For example, in our work with Siebert Financial on its Generational Wealth campaign to make wealth-building more accessible to a new generation of investors required trust from both the audience and client. Younger audiences do not necessarily want another large financial institution talking at them. Building trust with this audience requires teams that understand how younger people think about money, communicate with them directly, and make investing feel more personal and accessible. Proximity also matters on the client side because it gives everyone involved the room to challenge ideas, move quickly, and take creative risks. Trust reduces the distance between people, and judgment determines what you do with that freedom.
3. Shared responsibility creates better work.
Small teams work best when roles are clear and responsibility is shared. Designers should understand the strategy, strategists should care about execution, and clients should help shape the direction rather than simply approve it at the end. When different disciplines challenge one another early, stronger ideas survive and teams catch problems before they reach production. Structure determines what a team can see and how quickly it can respond.
4. AI is making the model more competitive.
AI is accelerating this shift. Small teams can now explore more creative routes, test variations, and produce work at a scale that previously required far larger production structures. But access to AI will not remain an advantage for long, because producing more options is becoming easier while choosing the right one remains difficult. AI can increase a team’s capacity, but it cannot replace taste, trust, or judgment.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The advantage of a small agency is ultimately not its size. It is how closely it can keep clients, talent, decisions, and responsibility to the work. That proximity builds trust and shared ownership, allowing teams to move faster without lowering the bar. Judgment, attention, and proximity are what determine the quality of the work.
Virtyt Pula is the founder and creative lead at TOML Collective.
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