Are Indies the Last Home for Creative Misfits?

Independent agencies are the final refuge for creative misfits, according to leading indie executives like The Hallway’s chief creative officer Simon Lee and founder of Bear Meets Eagle on Fire Micah Walker.

“As I watch our industry shrinking and people going off to work at brands, I fear there will be no home for the misfits anymore,” Simon said.

“Maybe indies are the last bastion of the creative misfit, and in that sense, they have a really important role to play.”

Simon’s comments were made as part of a roundtable of independent agencies hosted by LBB, which also featured Micah, Taboo ECD Charlotte Adjordan, Sick Dog Wolf Man creative director Jess Wheeler, and Emotive managing partner Michael Hogg.

Micah suggests that many indies are created off the back of frustration.

“It's not a super happy industry on the whole and I think the people that tend to get most frustrated are those that care the most and are the most creatively driven,” Micah said.

“When the industry starts to sweat the rarest edges of its talent, the misfits and the characters come to the conclusion that they can either get paid the same amount to take the same shit somewhere else or they can go somewhere they actually feel their creativity is valued.”

Micah noted that the industry’s issue of leaking talent is driven, in part, by motivated creatives deciding they would rather work internally for a brand. As Simon sees it, they’re misfits clamouring for a home.

“In any industry, there are sailors and pirates. I look at the networks as big ships with lots of sailors, where everyone's got their role and they work smoothly,” he said.

“What an indie gives you is the chance to be a pirate. It can be exciting when you're a pirate; you can find yourself at the helm of a Spanish galleon and looting loads of gold. But you can also end up stuck on a desert island, and then the sink or swim thing is really there.

“You have to be cool with that and to have the energy and drive to get back and chase the next Galleon. Some people make the choice and realise, ‘actually, I'm more of a sailor’, and then there's the pirate lifers.”

Simon has been with indies for most of his working life, spending 17 years of his two decade career with independent agencies. Sick Dog Wolf Man’s Jess related to Simon’s pirate analogy. While not a founder, Jess’ career has also mainly been spent in smaller, scrappier places.

“The things people criticised me for in my corporate career became exactly what independent agencies wanted,” Jess said.

“I was a typical creative outside of work and looking to break from the corporate monotony. But escaping into advertising wasn’t everything – you realise there's another version of what you were trying to escape from in the first place.

“Being in indies worked for me because I was always a bit of a black sheep or a disruptive student.”

Taboo Group’s newly-minted executive creative director, Charlotte Adorjan, is an indie newcomer by comparison, having spent most of her agency career in networks.

“What I've found just in the last six weeks,” Charlotte said, “is joy in the agility of indies, compared to the heaviness of a network sitting on your shoulders. There’s a freshness and lightness of touch; you can just have an idea one day and then make it tomorrow.

“As a creative person, not having that quick turnaround and the heavy weight of men in suits in offices far, far away, telling you no has been just a massive breath of fresh air.

“Taboo were born 24 years ago on the streets, and they’re still talking to people on the streets. I love that because big holding company guys sitting in boardrooms haven't got their sail to the wind. They're sitting there with their spreadsheets going, ‘Where's the next buck coming from?’”

Micah noted that being branded ‘independent’ isn’t a cure-all - a cluttered market means some pirates will end up on sinking ships.

“It's important to understand,” Micah said, “that some indies are just new or smaller versions of the same thing, and some are something else. I think it's good for the industry, and then the reality is just you sink or swim.”

Emotive’s Michael Hogg agrees. “You can look at that as healthy, which I think is generally for the industry,” he said, “or you can equally look at it as an opportunity for it to be unhealthy.”

He’s never worked at a big network, “mainly because I don't ever feel like I'd fit in; it never appealed to me.” It’s a life-changing choice to have agency over the work you do and the people you do it with, he added.

“Making shit is personal and choosing the people you work with is personal.”