Madison Ave. A Dead End?
Eight months in, Brian Lesser isn’t just sweeping the floors at GroupM-he’s bulldozing the building. The world’s biggest media buyer is now a cautionary tale, as 45% of its North American workforce gets “reorganized” (read: laid off, reassigned, or simply vanished), and the once-mighty GroupM brand is quietly euthanized in favor of the corporate moniker “WPP Media”. If you thought this was a rebrand, think again. This is a root-and-branch rewrite of the agency playbook.
Lesser’s message is blunt: the old agency model is obsolete. The future? Agencies as software platforms-lean, fast, and ruthlessly automated. Generative AI didn’t just spark this revolution; it’s the engine driving it. The implications are seismic. Less headcount, more code. Campaigns run by algorithms, not armies. If you’re an AdTech vendor, publisher, or advertiser, you’re either integrating seamlessly or you’re out.
This isn’t a trim. It’s a deletion. WPP Media isn’t just changing its name; it’s erasing the last two decades of Madison Avenue orthodoxy. The only question: who’s bold enough to follow?
The Two “R’s”: RTO and Recession
Return-to-office (RTO) and Recession are the twin wrecking balls for the ad world. RTO is flushing out the remote diehards (hope you like the view from your mountain cabin), but if you do come back, you’d better speak fluent AI. That’s the new baseline. As for recession? Expect companies to cut 20% of staff-and guess who’s first out the door? Those without AI on their résumés.
The Agency Clock Is Ticking
Advertising as we know it could end in less than two years. Maybe less. Zuckerberg’s already declared the agency model dead, rolling out a self-serve, AI-powered ad platform that cuts out the middleman entirely. Sir Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital just posted an 11.4% Q1 sales drop-a canary gasping in the digital coal mine.
This isn’t just about macroeconomics or tariffs. Clients are quietly in-housing with the same AI tools agencies used to sell as secret sauce. AI is democratizing efficiency and creativity for everyone, not just the “creatives.”
We’ve seen this very publicly over the past few weeks with Dualingo, Shopify and Klarna all taking an AI first approach. I am in favor of an AI Forward approach and suggests consideration and integration rather than wholesale elimination.
The Brutal Math of AI
One junior with Midjourney can replace a fleet of $50-$70K designers.
AI drafts campaigns faster than your team
AI analytics are already outperforming your insights department.
Sorrell, ever the optimist at 80, says things will turn around in H2. But the trend is clear: brands don’t need agencies for what they can do themselves with AI.
So, What’s Left for Agencies?
Radical Honesty: Stop selling what clients can now do in-house with AI.
Strategic Brains: Double down on business insight-AI can’t replace real strategy (yet).
AI Mastery: Use AI in ways clients can’t-deliver value, not just services.
Agencies aren’t extinct. But their purpose is unrecognizable.
Old Model:
Creative concept → Design → Media plan → Traffic → Report
New Model:
Strategic insight → AI workflow design → Internal capability building → Outcomes
Agencies must stop fighting the shift and start leading it. Otherwise, those recently laid-off designers become your fiercest competitors-solopreneur super-agencies, powered by the same AI you ignored.
Want to survive? Get AI fluent.
Follow me for AI consulting or one-on-one training. I bring 30 years of branding, marketing, and tech to the AI frontier. The future of Madison Ave? It’s not a dead end-but it’s a sharp turn, and most won’t make it.
Sources:
https://www.cityam.com/are-we-witnessing-the-slow-death-of-advertising-holding-companies/
https://www.adweek.com/agencies/wpp-kill-off-groupm-rebranding-wpp-media/
About the Author
Curt Doty, founder of CurtDoty.co, is an award winning creative director whose legacy lies in branding, product development, social strategy, integrated marketing, and User Experience Design. His work of entertainment branding includes Electronic Arts, EA Sports, ProSieben, SAT.1, WBTV Latin America, Discovery Health, ABC, CBS, A&E, StarTV, Fox, Kabel 1, and TV Guide Channel.
He has extensive experience on AI-driven platforms MidJourney, Adobe Firefly, ChatGPT, Perplexity, HeyGen, Descript and OpusClips. He also runs his AI consultancy RealmIQ and companion podcast RealmIQ: Sessions on YouTube and Spotify.
As a new writer, he released his first novella Griffin and the Dark Secret on Amazon under his imprint MediaSlam Press and is working on the second installment Griffin: Future Past.
He is a sought after public speaker having been featured at Streaming Media NYC, Digital Hollywood, Mobile Growth Association, Mobile Congress, App Growth Summit, Promax, CES, CTIA, NAB, NATPE, MMA Global, New Mexico Angels, Santa Fe Business Incubator, EntrepeneursRx, Davos Worldwide, NMPRSA, Robert Half, and AI Impact. He has lectured at universities including Full Sail, SCAD, Art Center College of Design, CSUN and Chapman University.
He currently serves on the board of the Godfrey Reggio Foundation and is the AI Writer for Parlay Me.
