ADGEEK
What makes an advertising agency a durable business?
Marketing management consultant Ivan Fernandes examines the agency model through margins, capital, client partnerships and acquisitions. He argues that creative output alone does not build lasting enterprise value.
The conversation
What does it take to build not just great campaigns, but great businesses? In this episode of The Indian AdGeek, I sat down with Ivan Fernandes — leading marketing management consultant — to unpack the urgent shifts reshaping the advertising world.
Ivan shares how he first found his way into advertising and draws on his marketing management experience to examine agency health. From the industry’s fixation on awards over business impact to the need for agencies to move beyond vendor relationships and truly partner with clients, he argues for a fundamental reset in how agencies create value.
• The Turning Point: The single most urgent change agencies must make in the next 12 months to stay relevant. • Founders’ Dilemma: Why some agency founders achieve 60–70% margins while others struggle, and the practical advice he gives to leaders looking to grow, exit, or rebuild. • Campaigns vs. Businesses: The critical metric beyond creative output that defines sustainable enterprise value. • Platform + Product + Service: Ivan’s framework for agencies to think more like tech companies, and the barriers blocking that transition. • Capital Choices: Debt, equity, or PE — how agency leaders should weigh financial models against creative investment, client churn, and talent retention. • M&A Insights: Red flags in acquisition targets, common mistakes in integrations, and trends shaping Indian agency consolidation. • AI & Creativity: Why AI is an enabler, not a storyteller, and the irreplaceable role of the Creative Director in 2026. • Brain Drain & Innovation: How agencies can retain talent, foster innovation, and survive scale and exits. • Performance vs. Creativity: Preventing creativity from being reduced to mere optimisation in performance-first client relationships.
Ivan also revisits his provocative piece “How I’d Build a Marketing Agency Rollup in 2025”, explaining why PE-backed agencies often miss the mark on integration, and what they can fix. Along the way, he points to models like Stagwell’s multi-pronged approach as examples of how agencies can thrive by rethinking structure.
Key Takeaways
- Ivan argues that agency leaders should look beyond awards and campaign output to the value of the business they are building.
- He makes the case for moving client relationships from vendor transactions toward partnerships grounded in business impact.
- The conversation weighs founders’ choices around growth, exits and rebuilding, including debt, equity and private capital.
- Ivan’s platform, product and service framework asks agencies to reconsider how they create and scale value.
- His analysis of agency rollups examines acquisition red flags and the difficulty of integrating firms after a deal.
- On AI, Ivan sees the technology as an enabler while retaining a distinct role for creative directors in storytelling.