Legacy agencies vs independents
- Lauren Ludlow
- 5 days ago
- 1 min read
Recent shake ups:
→ Publicis acquired Influential in July 2024
→ Now, Captiv8 joins the mix, just one year later
→ WPP picked up Village Marketing
→ Orchestra scooped up Small Girls PR
→ Marc Benioff invests in Whalar at a $400 million valuation
Here’s what’s interesting: these agencies aren’t being folded into the legacy holding companies. They’re staying independent.
Why? Creator marketing doesn’t scale like media. You can’t centralize trust, cultural fluency, or relationships - and trying to often strips away what made these agencies valuable in the first place.
Having worked inside these networks — and collaborated across the ecosystem - this is what I see.
This isn’t just about buying platforms. It’s about buying time:
- Time to catch up and build credibility
- Time to figure out how to scale creator work without breaking the magic
At Ludlow Social, we’re small by design to be upstream in strategy. We turn influencer marketing into a growth engine, not just a paid tactic. And we’re building systems that compound influence - not just convert it.
The creator economy isn’t niche anymore. It’s infrastructure, operations, and a solid tech stack to enable scale.
The real question now is: who gets to define best-in-class?
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