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Two independent agencies—media shop Crossmedia and Joan Creative—are reimagining how to reintegrate media and creative disciplines. They’re rolling out a unique service offering, dubbed JoanxMedia, that’s designed to offer clients more options and could inspire how other independent agencies go to market.
By partnering, independent agencies can integrate services without having to master new disciplines. For agencies that want to develop new practices, partnerships circumvent arduous processes like training and upskilling new talent, and finding clients willing to bet on an agency with limited expertise in a given area.
Crossmedia and Joan Creative’s new integrated offering is one way independent agencies, which have more flexibility than holding company agencies to experiment with novel operating models, can offer more to their clients and grow their businesses. An offering like JoanxMedia makes it possible for the two independent agencies to share clients, cross-train employees and nab business from larger competitors.
Why agency leaders split up creative and media
Historically, agencies offered clients both media and creative services, but in the ’80s agency leaders split the disciplines. This happened largely because holding companies could financially benefit from separating creative and media business lines. CMOs would then spend more to retain disparate creative and media partners, benefiting the parent company’s bottom line.
Separating the two practices only made sense for so long, though. The media ecosystem eventually underwent a profound change as digital ads dethroned traditional print placements. Then, big data made it possible for media agencies, with campaign metrics in hand, to inform creative strategies. By then, most media and creative agencies had already been operating in silos for decades, and reworking the operating model posed a challenge.
“We call that the original sin of advertising—the separation of creative and media,” Joan CEO and co-founder Lisa Clunie told Adweek. “The goal of this venture is really to fix that problem. Creative and media are so much better when they sit at the same table.”
Now, many holding company and independent agencies alike hope to integrate media and creative practices without disrupting workflows and P&Ls. Some holding company agencies began tackling reintegration by building out new practice areas. GroupM’s EssenceMediacom, for example, built Creative Systems, a creative arm within the broader media organization.
Reimagining reintegration
Many CMOs, especially those heading large companies, are now tapping into holding company networks to access a full suite of services. Health technology maker Philips, for example, consolidated its marketing spend with Omnicom in 2021. Independent agencies suffered as a result of this quest for more integration. From the CMO’s perspective, managing several agencies on a single roster can be cumbersome and require talent investments on the brand side that are costly and difficult to maintain.
Compounding the situation, clients began integrating their own marketing departments—merging brand and performance media teams that used to operate separately. Independent agencies, as a result of these structural changes and industry trends, are now forced to compete with holding company agencies that have more to offer clients due to their sheer scale and complement clients’ internal organizational structures.
The JoanxMedia offering is a new way independent agencies can create broader service offerings that stoke their respective businesses and lure clients away from holding companies. The integrated offering is now available to existing Joan Creative clients including eBay, ZenBusiness, European Wax Center and S&P Global; the latter two are also Crossmedia clients.
Indies partner to broaden offerings
Crossmedia CEO and co-founder Kamran Asghar, who received Adweek’s 2022 Media Executive of the Year award, also owns a majority stake in Crossmedia, making it the industry’s largest minority-owned media agency. Clunie considers Asghar a personal friend and stressed Crossmedia’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, which parallels her own priorities as a woman agency owner.
“The history of [Crossmedia] has been to partner with creative agencies—but those relationships tend to ebb and flow. There’s a need maybe in a pitch, or you are forced to work together because a client brings you together,” said Asghar of Crossmedia’s historical partnerships with creative agency counterparts.
Owning their agencies allows Asghar and Clunie to be more nimble than many other larger agencies could be, were they given the chance to execute a similar partnership. The collaboration also expands each agency’s offering without requiring significant changes to hiring strategies and workflows.
“There’s a challenge with trying to build something like that in-house. We’ll never be as good [at media] as Crossmedia is,” said Clunie. “This partnership speaks to a new way of embedding talent, collaborating and getting the best of both.”
Crossmedia executive director Jodi Monroe will lead JoanxMedia. “JoanxMedia will give media a seat at the table from day one, saving our clients the dance between two different strategic operation systems,” Monroe said in a statement provided to Adweek.
JoanxMedia is the latest development at the creative agency, which received Adweek’s 2022 Small Agency of the Year award. Joan Creative recently opened its new Manhattan office and relocated its growing team. It’s expanded its offering beyond the Crossmedia partnership, adding practices including the in-house culture and brand company Damn Joan, a merchandise arm and its full-scale production practice Joan Studios.
Asghar and Clunie hope the new offering pushes the industry forward, and they’re willing to share their learnings with other independent agencies interested in the strategy. “We love supporting the indie community,” Asghar said.
