Media Buying Briefing: How are the 2nd tier holdcos separating themselves from the Big Three?

ID Comms CEO and c-founder Tom Denford, dubbed that second tier of Dentsu, Havas, Horizon and Stagwell “Red Ocean agencies,” argued they need to evolve or face elimination.  “Those four businesses have shown less mutation than the Big Three so far, but are under incredible pressures commercially,” wrote Denford in an email. “We call them the Red Ocean agencies because they’re really in a fight for survival, and not all of them will be around in three to five years’ time … [They] would be better served by differentiating themselves culturally and positioning themselves differently from the Big Three, and therefore focusing on their culture, their DNA, their people and their service.”

If they can survive in whatever form, they have a good chance at finding their niche in the marketing world, said Hasan Ramusevic, who runs agency and marketing consultancy Harmonium. “Not every major marketer wants or needs the size and complexity that comes with the largest agencies. There’s room for someone who can combine the scale, sophistication and global reach of a holdco with the agility and intimacy of an independent. The question is whether one of these three can break away from the pack and own that space.”

Robin Bonn, CEO of agency transformation consultancy Co:definery, dubs them Goldilocks (bigger than indies, smaller than holdcos). “Many challengers are explicitly trying to win the same significant advertisers that the largest groups trade between them,” he explained. “But without greater differentiation, few are offering a sufficiently meaningful alternative yet. And they risk replicating the very businesses that they challenge … Their ability to move faster, integrate AI faster and create new sources of client value faster is really where the game is played.”

Should the large-scale agency world end up looking even more homogeneous than it already is, that can spell bad news for clients. The problem is, AI brings them all closer to homogeneity by its own nature. 

Here’s a company by company analysis based on interviews with five different consultants.  

Dentsu

It may not be holdco-wide, but last week Dentsu unveiled a positioning for its Carat brand whose new tagline is “Difference Engineered” — no subtlety there in setting itself apart from other holdcos. But, failed M&A efforts aside from a year ago, which Forrester’s vp and senior agency analyst Jay Pattisall considers “water under the bridge,” that’s just window dressing because Dentsu goes to market as one holdco more than it ever did. 

“Dentsu is one of the stronger players for sure. And I’m not talking about just the the size of billings or buying power, but also in capabilities and strengths,” said Pattisall. “They’re particularly strong in search, in technology, in innovation, and in partnerships on a global basis. Not only media but also into the content side of the business.”

Denford agreed in large part, but thinks the Japanese connection could be an advantage not a shortcoming (as has been perceived by others). “It’s interesting to see Carat’s new positioning,” he said. ”However, we believe that the parent company has the bigger opportunity to differentiate itself from the other groups and should leverage its Japanese heritage and accentuate all the positive associations with that (which only they can legitimately talk about in the marketplace).“ 

But perhaps communication is one of their bigger obstacles, as Ramusevic argued that it doesn’t represent itself as effectively as it could (and isn’t as sure the M&A debacle is in the rear view mirrow as Pattisall believes). “Dentsu has done a pretty good job integrating its capabilities, and they’ve got some formidable assets,” he said. “But I’m not sure they’ve consistently articulated what makes them different. The uncertainty surrounding their international business certainly hasn’t helped. There’s a difference between having all the right capabilities and giving marketers a compelling reason to choose you. I think Dentsu is still trying to connect those dots.”

Stagwell

Mark Penn’s challenger network has always done things a bit differently, and at a smaller scale than the Big Three, it’s having some success from a financial perspective, delivering organic growth that rivals only Publicis in its percentage (off a much smaller base). Stagwell’s recent move to consolidate most of its media-side assets into Stagwell Media (Assembly we hardly knew ye) reflects the approach Slavi Samardzija is taking as head of media and commerce. He’s widely considered one of the smartest architects of modern media/tech/commerce in the industry today. 

“Stagwell has the clearest go-to-market strategy,” said Ramusevic, who cited the Stagwell Media consolidation as creating “greater scale, maturity and a more coherent offering. They’ve also done a good job positioning themselves around AI and technology. Whether they can deliver on all that promise remains to be seen, but at least they’ve got a clear story and seem to be organizing the business around it.” 

Pattisall credits Stagwell with realizing it needed to consolidate its media-side offering and tech. “The Media Machine is a significant advancement in that area in that they truly have one unified platform,” he said. “They had internally competitive platforms that were being developed with internal R&D by the individual agencies… It hasn’t coalesced all together just yet, but that’s just time. The pieces are being put into place, and the investments are being made.”

To Denford, Stagwell’s pitch is best differntiated by virtue of the clients it seeks out. “More than a compelling proposition to advertisers in rebranding their media assets as Stagwell Media, and now acknowledging a strong appetite to pursue principal media buying revenue [Stagwell does it through owned media properties], they have to find and focus on those middle-sized clients who want a holding company solution but feel that the Big Three are too big for them.”

Havas and Horizon

They remain separate companies (for now) but have formed an international partnership that on paper sounds promising — Horizon has the North American reach and infrastructure that Havas has never really been able to reach on its own. For its part, Havas has that same clout in Europe and elsewhere, which Horizon lacks. But the partnership has yielded little in the way of new business.

“This combination has to become the best of both rather than a compromise of each, and that’s going to require some work,” said Denford. “It’s possible that they could fast-track some formal merger or combination once both sides are confident that this test drive is a really good partnership.”

Pattisall sees a strong progression on Havas’ part to emphasize a better cultural understanding of what clients need and want to connect with consumers, from its “meaningful media” positioning of a decade ago to a “desire”-driven mission. “Now the story is about desire, and and how they translate desire into awareness, into preference, and into commitment, and it is a full funnel approach to growth, and it occupies both a brand approach to communications as well as a demand and performance orientation.”

Ramusevic said Havas is probably the hardest of the challengers to figure out. “They’ve done a lot to integrate their capabilities, but so has everyone else — and there’s no shortage of offerings,” he noted. “I’m sure each has its purpose, but I’m not convinced they add up to a particularly differentiated proposition in the minds of marketers.” 

In the end, this level of agencies below the Big Three can parlay their smaller size and greater agility to advantage if they remain flexible, said Manuel Reyes, CEO of media consultancy Cortex Media. “What we’re finding with the second tier of agencies are easier, more open contract negotiations,” said Reyes. “When you are engaging with them for the first time or renewing a contract, they’re more willing to partner with in-house agencies and share data with clients.” 

Color by numbers

Prediction market companies have become high-profile advertisers in the last year, pulling in big-name endorsements like Timothee Chalamet and Sydney Sweeney as they compete to dominate their category — never mind the state lawsuits targeting some of the chief players. While it’s hard to miss the Times Square billboards or streaming spots on live sports coverage, where they’re distributing their media budgets, and how much they’re spending, is less obvious. Figures shared with Digiday by ad data science firm AdClarity shed some light on the matter. The company estimated that Kalshi, Polymarket, Sweeney-fronted Novig and ProphetX spent over $50 million on digital ads between January and September this year already.

• $32.7 million: the estimated amount spent by Kalshi on U.S. digital advertising over the last nine months, 65% of the total estimated spend from the four companies in that time.
• $10.1 million: Kalshi’s August digital ad spend, the peak of its investments so far this year. Polymarket outspent Kalshi between April and June, during which it spent an estimated $6.9 million.
• 45%: The proportion of Kalshi’s estimated ad spend that went to online video (OLV) inventory, with 36% going on CTV; Polymarket, by contrast, put 40% towards paid social and 36% on digital display.
• $298,000: Novig’s estimated ad spend during September, when its Sydney Sweeney campaign launched. — Sam Bradley

Takeoff & landing

• Havas reported third quarter earnings, seeing 2.5% organic net revenue growth over nine months in 2026. The French holdco enjoyed stronger growth in North America at 7.1% thanks largely to acquisitions but was flat or down in the rest of the world. Margins continue to hover in the 13% range, and the holdco expects growth for the rest of 2026 to remain between 2-3%. 
• After some corporate courtship a year ago, Stagwell and ADK Holdings struck a three-year strategic business partnership that expands from project-based cooperation to a longer-term strategic framework that gives the holdco deeper access to ADK’s capabilities and market knowledge in Japan where ADK is based.
• Account moves: Omnicom’s PHD in the U.K. landed Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines’ media strategy business … Innocean won media agency duties for TaylorMade Golf Pacific in Australia … Also in Australia, Match & Wood takes on media strategy and planning for Australian Defence Force’s health insurance fund Defence Health … Dentsu Media won media duties in India for TVS Motor Company.
• Personnel moves: WPP promoted Adam Gerhart from chief client officer of WPP Media to a global role for the entire holding company … MSQ hired James Townsend to be its CEO succeeding Peter Reid, who becomes executive chairman of the organization. Townsend most recently was CEO of Stagwell EMEA and global CEO of Stagwell’s Brand Performance Network … At Stagwell, Nagmeh Taheri was named chief growth officer for Media & Commerce for Stagwell Europe, coming over from Omnicom Media where she was chief growth officer for the U.K. and Ireland. 

Direct quote

“Marketers have spent decades optimizing experiences they control. AI is pushing more of the customer journey into places they don’t. The challenge now isn’t just building a better website or running a smarter campaign. It’s making sure your brand, content, data and customer experience work together wherever that journey happens.”

— Brendan Turner, SVP of Digital Experience at indie agency MX

Speed reading

• Seb Joseph looked into Dentsu’s aspirations to become a bigger player in the entertainment content space, via an interview with Cathy Boxall, the holdco’s global head of entertainment. 
• A team effort among Seb Joseph, Krystal Scanlon and Sam Bradley resulted in a strong Future of Marketing Briefing about the holdcos’ moves to approach the CEO over the CMO in winning business. 
• I had a chat with one of the two people who run BaD Mktg, which is a two-person shop using AI to run at the same scale as a 12-person shop making content.