Services of a creative agency: the history from J. Walter Thompson (1864) to the unbundled model of 2026 and how to choose well

A creative agency is a company that provides professional services related to the conception, production, and distribution of brand communication. The technical definition is broad, which in practice hides an enormous variety of operating models—from three-person boutiques to global groups with thousands of employees, including agencies specialized in a single discipline and full-service agencies that aim to cover everything. The practical question for anyone looking to hire an agency, "what services do I need and from whom?", requires understanding a bit of the sector's history to avoid falling into false equivalences.

This guide is written from the buyer's side: for marketing directors, founders, brand managers, or leaders of in-house teams who are considering hiring an agency and need to know what type of agency for what type of problem.

A brief but useful history of the sector

Knowing where the agency model comes from helps explain why there's so much variation.

The formal origin of the sector is placed in 1864, when J. Walter Thompson joined an advertising agency in New York that would later take his name, and which is still active today (rebranded as VML after the merger with Wunderman in 2018, within the WPP group). Thompson formalized the full-service agency model: the agency bought newspaper space wholesale, resold it to advertisers at a markup, and delivered the creative to fill that space as an additional service. That model—buy media, do the creative, manage everything—dominated the sector for a century.

The 1920s-1960s were the golden age of the full-service model. Young & Rubicam (Y&R) was founded in 1923 with the conviction that creativity, not just data, should be the center of the business. DDB (Doyle Dane Bernbach) was founded in 1949 and revolutionized advertising creativity with the Volkswagen account and the famous "Think small" series of the '60s. Ogilvy & Mather (1948) introduced the rigor of research into the creative process. This is the Mad Men era: agencies that handled everything, with account, creative, media planning, production, and trafficking departments, all under the same roof and on the same invoice.

The 1970s-1990s saw consolidation: the big agencies bought each other and grouped into advertising holding companies. WPP was formed in 1985, Omnicom in 1986, Publicis Groupe expanded internationally, IPG (Interpublic) consolidated multiple brands. By the '90s, the sector was dominated by these four groups plus Japan's Dentsu. Saatchi & Saatchi (1970), Wieden+Kennedy (1982, founded for the Nike account), and TBWA maintained creative identities inside or outside the groups.

The fundamental change came with the internet. Starting in 2000-2010, media fragmentation (TV, digital, search, social, programmatic) meant the traditional full-service model began to struggle. This transition is the basis of digital marketing as we understand it today. Specialized agencies emerged: R/GA repositioned itself as a digital specialist, AKQA and Razorfish led pure digital, search agencies (specialists in SEM and SEO), social agencies (BBH, We Are Social), performance agencies, content agencies (Vice was an extreme example). The full-service model didn't disappear but lost its hegemony.

From 2015-2020, the "unbundling" happened. Large brands began hiring pools of specialized agencies instead of a single full-service one. The argument: each discipline has better talent in specialized boutiques than in the diluted departments of large full-service agencies. Famous cases: Marriott brought part of its digital content in-house with Marriott Content Studio, Pepsi created Creators League Studio internally, Unilever built U-Studio in-house. The general trend was: brand → in-house team + external specialized agencies.

2026 is a mixed landscape. Coexisting:

• Large advertising groups (WPP, Omnicom, Publicis, IPG, Dentsu) offering full-service.
• Mid-sized independent creative agencies (in the style of Wieden+Kennedy, BBH, Mother) with a strong identity.
• Specialists by discipline (performance, SEO, social, audiovisual production, PR agencies).
• In-house teams with or without external partners.
• Freelancers and small collectives.
• Creative operations SaaS platforms that coordinate the above.

Knowing where you are on this map orients you about what type of agency you need (and which you don't).

The real services a creative agency offers

The list of services available in the agency market in 2026 is broad. It's worth mapping it by category because confusion about what fits where produces imprecise briefs:

Strategy

• Brand strategy: positioning, purpose, values, architecture.
• Marketing strategy: annual plans, channel mix, budget allocation.
• Content strategy: thematic cluster, calendar, brand voice.
• Communication strategy: how the brand's story is told over time.
• Research: market studies, ethnography, surveys, customer panels.

Identity and design

• Visual identity and branding: logo, palette, typography, brand system.
• Editorial design: catalogs, reports, decks, print materials.
• Packaging design.
• UI/UX design: digital interfaces, web, apps.
• Motion graphics: brand animations, explainers, intros.
• Illustration and art direction.

Audiovisual production

• Video production: shooting, editing, post-production.
• Photography: product, lifestyle, portrait, food.
• Sound and music: jingles, voice-over, sonic identity.
• 2D/3D animation.

Digital communication

• Web and landing pages: design, development, hosting, maintenance.
• SEO: technical, content, link building.
• Content marketing: blog, resources, newsletters.
• Email marketing: strategy, automations, copywriting.
• CRM and marketing automation.
• Analytics: implementation, dashboards, attribution.

Paid media and performance

• Paid search: Google Ads, Bing Ads.
• Paid social: Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, X.
• Programmatic display.
• Programmatic OOH (covered in out-of-home advertising).
• Influencer marketing.
• Integrated performance marketing: joint optimization of paid channels.

Social and community

• Social media management.
• Social content production.
• Community management.
• Customer service on social.

PR and public relations

• Corporate communication.
• Media relations: relationships with journalists and media.
• Crisis management.
• Events and in-person public relations.
• Internal communication.

Production and experiences

• Events: launches, trade shows, activations.
• Experiential marketing: in-person campaigns, installations.
• Retail design: design of commercial spaces.
• Sampling and promotional.

An individual agency rarely offers all of the above with the same quality. Most specialize in a few categories (typically 3-5) and can subcontract the rest if the client needs them.

Agency models in 2026: which one is for you

The choice of which type of agency to hire depends on your situation, not on which is "best" in the abstract:

Traditional full-service

When it fits: large brands that prefer a single point of contact, accounts with significant budgets, organizations that value comprehensive consistency over specific disciplinary excellence.

When it doesn't fit: small or mid-sized companies that would pay for capabilities they don't need, brands that require disciplinary excellence in a specific area the full-service agency doesn't master.

Specialist boutique

Small agencies (10-50 people) with a strong focus on one or two disciplines: branding, video, performance, SEO, social, PR.

When it fits: when you need depth in a specific discipline and your volume doesn't justify a large full-service agency.

When it doesn't fit: if your need covers multiple disciplines and coordination among separate boutiques will be a nightmare.

Integrated digital agency

Mid-sized agencies that combine digital strategy, content, performance, social, and sometimes production. They emerged starting in 2010 as a response to the digital shift.

When it fits: brands with a broad digital need but less need for traditional media or heavy audiovisual production.

When it doesn't fit: brands that need integrated campaigns with TV, OOH, large-scale events.

Production agency / production company

Specialized in audiovisual production: shooting, post-production, animation.

When it fits: when you already have a strategy and only need quality audiovisual execution.

When it doesn't fit: when you need someone to define the upstream strategy.

In-house + freelancers + platform

A growing model: a small internal team, freelancers for ad-hoc capacity, SaaS tools for coordination. Brands that took this path: Airbnb, Spotify, Shopify (at various times).

When it fits: brands with enough volume to justify in-house but without needing an external full-service agency, brands that value control and speed over greater creative variety.

When it doesn't fit: small brands that can't maintain an in-house team, or brands that value the diversity of thought of external agencies.

Integrated holding

The client hires several agencies from the same holding (WPP, Omnicom, etc.) coordinated by a dedicated client team from the holding.

When it fits: very large global brands that require international consistency and want scale advantages in media buying.

When it doesn't fit: most mid-sized companies; the model is optimized for very large clients.

What to ask for before hiring (the honest brief)

One of the most frequent causes of bad client-agency relationships is an insufficient brief. The agency can't deliver what it hasn't been clearly asked for. What any serious brief should include:

A measurable objective. Not "we want more visibility." "Increase qualified organic traffic to product page X by 30% in 6 months."

A specific audience. Not "millennials." "Marketing directors at B2B SaaS companies with 50-500 employees, in Spain and Latam."

Real constraints. Budget, timeline, internal resources, technical dependencies, legal or regulatory restrictions.

Expected deliverables. A concrete list. A brief that says "we want content" produces something useless. A brief that says "we want 4 30-second videos for Instagram, 12 blog posts of 1,500 words, a landing page, and 8 banners in 3 formats" produces something coherent.

Success criteria. How it will be measured whether what was delivered worked. Without pre-agreed criteria, reviews are based on subjective taste.

Decision-makers. Who approves what, in what order. Without this, you pay for endless reviews that never reach final approval.

Existing brand guidelines. Visual system, voice, prior examples. An agency starting from scratch produces something different from an agency starting from your current system.

Common mistakes when hiring an agency

Hiring by rapport, not by fit. "We liked the team, they seemed friendly." It works occasionally, fails frequently. Technical suitability matters more.

Not seeing relevant portfolio. That the agency has good work doesn't mean it knows how to do what you need. Ask for examples of the specific problem you're going to hire for.

Committing to an annual contract without a pilot project. Testing capability on a defined scope before committing years usually saves money.

Hiring the cheapest without considering opportunity cost. A cheap agency that produces mediocre work costs the agency fee + the cost of the work that doesn't perform.

Not defining how and who approves changes. Changes without criteria and without a cap inflate the budget and kill the motivation of creative teams.

Not discussing usage rights. Who has rights to the creatives, editable source files, raw footage, photos. Without an agreement, you're left without elements you'll need later.

Assuming someone else's culture as your own. What works as a way of working for an agency may not fit your organization. Discussing pace, communication, and review frequency before starting avoids friction.

Not having a client team capable of managing an agency. Although it may seem counterintuitive, managing an agency requires internal capacity. Without a client lead who decides, projects get stuck.

How to coordinate an agency with an in-house team

In 2026, most mid-sized and large brands operate with a hybrid model: an in-house team plus one or several external partners. The quality of that coordination is what distinguishes brands that perform well with mixed systems from those that get bogged down in role confusion.

The practices that work in practice:

Clear roles between in-house and agency. In-house typically handles: overall strategy, day-to-day brand management, critical decisions. The agency typically handles: ad-hoc capacity for excellence, creative talent that's hard to maintain in-house, production peaks.

A shared brand system. If in-house and agency work on different versions of the brand system, the pieces don't fit. Centralizing the guide and library is essential.

Predictable review cadences. If approval decisions are ad hoc, the agency works in permanent friction.

Financial transparency. How it's invoiced, what's included, what isn't. Without clarity, there are surprises.

Periodic reflection on the relationship. Every 6-12 months, review what's working, what isn't, what to adjust. Agency-client relationships that last for years usually include this practice.

Creative agency services and creative operations

Here is the connection that gives the cluster covered by this site its name. Creative agencies exist because brands need creative capacity that can't always be maintained in-house, but the coordination between what the agency does and what the client team does is a discipline of its own—and it's exactly what creative operations tries to make executable as a system.

Without creative operations, brands with several agencies and an in-house team live in a state of constant coordination: crossed emails, different versions of files in different folders, rewritten briefs, lost reviews. With creative operations, that friction drops: the editorial calendar coordinates agency + internal production, the approval workflows resolve who approves what on time, and brand management ensures the agency and team work on the same system.

At Polimake that logic is structured across three surfaces of the same product: Studio to coordinate multi-team production, Studio to produce pieces with a consistent brand system, and Media as the repository where the agency and client team access the same material—so that the fifth campaign is more efficient than the first because the system accumulates learning.

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If you lead marketing, brand, or strategy and you've arrived here looking for an answer about creative agency services, the most useful thing you can take from this article is probably the shift in the question: it's not "which agency is the best," it's "what type of agency for what concrete problem." Agencies that are good in one discipline can be mediocre in another. The honest choice requires knowing what you need, what your organization can manage, and what relationship model your culture sustains.

To complement this, creative operations covers the broader discipline of coordinating multi-team creative production, audiovisual production company covers the most common specialized subtype, and stakeholders covers the organizational dimension of managing an agency as one more of your stakeholders.

Quick references

• Audiovisual production company — the most common specialized subtype.
• Stakeholders — the agency as an organizational stakeholder.
• Video brief — how to write the brief the agency receives.
• WBS — the discipline of breaking down work, useful for coordinating an agency.
• Brand management — the system the agency and in-house work on.