There’s been a mass shakeup at the top ranks of ad agencies in 2022, putting renewed strain on client relationships already in jeopardy from shrinking budgets and a rapidly evolving industry.

Some of the movement is the ripple effect of COVID-19 and the Great Resignation that followed, which left execs feeling burned out and at odds with their companies, which were suddenly under massive pressure to adapt to changing clients’ needs. Marketers themselves are trying to navigate shifting consumer habits, including the explosion of e-commerce and the rise of TikTok as a marketing vehicle.

Ad Age spoke to 11 industry professionals, including consultants managing agency-marketer relationships and top agency execs who left their roles this year, who described this disruption as the impetus for the high level of turnover. And the immediate result of these changes, which will likely start playing out in early 2023, will be a renewed uptick in account reviews, according to these professionals.

Executives were granted anonymity to speak openly about their companies and clients.

Citing leadership changes and a perceived lack of strategy, 38% of U.S. advertisers are likely to switch agencies within the next six months, according to a recent study from SetUp, a company that matches brands with marketing agencies.

Chief marketing officer turnover is also high, and CMO shuffles are a leading indicator of account shifts.

Leadership on the run

Within the last year, the industry has experienced whiplash from the high level of agency leadership changes. During a two-week period in October alone, Ad Age documented 18 top-level agency executive shifts.

A lot of the movement is happening at ad agencies once revered for big branding TV campaigns that are declining in demand, like Interpublic Group of Cos.’ McCann, independent shop Wieden+Kennedy, Accenture Song’s Droga5 and WPP’s Grey.

Wieden+Kennedy is under new leadership; Karl Lieberman and Neal Arthur took the reins after founders David Kennedy and Dan Wieden died within one year of each other in October 2021 and 2022, respectively. The agency also lost its high-profile Global Chief Creative Officer and President Colleen DeCourcy, who announced her retirement last December and joined Snap to be its creative chief not long after.

One current agency employee and one consultant working with Wieden+Kennedy said the agency has been focused on finding new ways of producing breakthrough creative content and investing in areas like social media through its Bodega studio, rather than focusing most of its energy on big branding spots.

IPG’s McCann Worldgroup has had a slew of leadership changes as the agency looks to evolve past its traditional TV roots. This has included installing Daryl Lee, previously the global CEO of IPG Mediabrands, as its new chief executive to lead the agency through the new digital era. WPP’s Grey has also seen some major departures as it integrates with AKQA after its merger two years ago. The agency lost New York CEO Amber Guild to McCann in November, while former New York Chief Creative Officer Justine Armour left in July.

Droga5 has seen a string of new hires and departures that started notably with the exit of former Global Chief Strategy Officer Jonny Bauer, who left for Blackstone in April 2021, as Droga5 continues to merge itself under new parent Accenture Song. Most recently, Sarah Thompson, global lead for Accenture Song's communications unit and the former Droga5 global CEO, left the company after 15 years.

Also read: Allstate moves account to Wieden+Kennedy from Droga5

Evolve or rebuild

These are just a handful of the dozens of agencies under immense pressure to adapt to shifting client needs and growing appetite for data-driven performance, e-commerce, TikTok videos and Web3, all while they deal with their own internal workplace disruption brought on by the pandemic.

Marketers increasingly want their ad agencies to do everything from creating traditional TV spots to plotting metaverse strategies. As they’re set up now, the first consultant said, many of the legacy creative agencies are not equipped to do all of that and they’re in the midst of an identity crisis, so they’re trying to find the right leadership to carry their brands into this new era of advertising.

One holding company executive said every top executive is faced with a decision right now: Do I trust the leadership I have in place to evolve the agency to where it needs to go or do I completely rebuild with a new team?

A lot of agencies are rebuilding, creating an influx of open top roles for executives to move into despite layoffs starting to hit the industry. 

At the same time, many leaders are burned out from all the disruption and at odds with their current employers, so they’re eager to jump ship and have a list of open roles to choose from. For example, Mother New York is still searching for former Chief Creative Officer and Partner Corinna Falusi’s replacement after she left in June and Saatchi & Saatchi New York’s chief creative officer position is open after Daniel Lobatón, who was behind award-winning campaigns such as “It’s a Tide Ad” for the Publicis Groupe-owned agency, left for Canadian independent agency Rethink in November.

“It’s a lot of change for the sake of change,” one chief creative officer who recently jumped ship said. “You can get a job easily. If one thing doesn’t feel right at your current company, it’s really easy to change.”

The chief creative officer said leaders are exhausted from managing teams through COVID, understaffing issues in the Great Resignation, and now trying to keep spirits up amid the looming recession. A change in pace feels necessary to a lot of execs as they try to keep the creative juices flowing, this person said.

Playing intermediary

A lot of junior professionals left their agencies or the industry altogether in 2021, while more senior leaders stayed to help their agencies weather the storm. Now, it’s their time to leave.

A second chief creative officer who recently left their agency said the role over the last two years became less about creating great campaigns and more about managing overhead and playing intermediary between employees and the employer when workers started to unwillingly be called back to the office last year.

“I got pulled into things I no longer was good at or enjoyed,” the second former chief creative officer said. “You have holding company leaders who need to deliver margins to shareholders, but also you’ve got a younger talent pool that is saying, ‘I don’t want to work the way that Gen X has.’ As a leader you’re in the middle of those two places. I had two years of that and you find yourself in a toxic, dysfunctional relationship.”

The second chief creative ended up feeling so disengaged with the work and exhausted from taking on additional responsibilities that it was hard to get out of bed in the morning. “You get to a place where you’re like ‘I don’t know how to fix it in the place I’m at so I’m going to have to exit,’” this person said.

Accounts will likely change hands

With these exec shifts will inevitably come account moves, especially if marketers feel blindsided by the changes.

One account that will be coming under review is PNC Bank’s creative and media, according to two people close to the matter. The company’s creative ad agency of record is IPG’s Deutsch, New York, which it has been with for 13 years, and which has brought on a string of new hires to its New York office, including Chief Creative Officer Samira Ansari, who replaced former creative chief Dan Kelleher in June.

To be sure, PNC is seeing a lot of change within its own marketing business as David Thuma, CMO and exec VP, is set to retire at the end of the year. The financial services firm is searching for his replacement, but it's not uncommon for an account to go into review when a new chief marketer takes the helm.

Deutsch deferred comment to the client. PNC Bank did not return a request for comment.

Joanne Davis, president and founder of agency search firm Joanne Davis Consulting, said the “musical chairs of agency leaders” has been concerning for the marketers she advises.

“We tell clients all the time that they are hiring the agency team talent, not the agency brand,” Davis said. “The leaders set the tone. When a new leader arrives, there is often a house of cards, where prior deputy leaders are replaced by the new leader’s hand-picked deputies.”

Some brands specifically hired an agency because of the leadership they had in place, only to find out once the contract went through that those executives left, according to a second consultant who runs new business pitches and manages agency-client relationships.

The first chief creative officer said good work is all about trust and relationships, so if a brand was promised a team that left the agency or has had a longstanding partnership with a top exec who has moved onto another agency, likely the account will go with them. “It’s unavoidable,” they said.

But the chief creative officer said it’s not necessarily a bad thing, as the work will likely be better for it, especially coming off a slow year for new business in 2022.

“Everything has been stagnant,” the exec said. “These rotations and changes are what’s needed for people to feel re-energized. Renewal will spark new ideas.”