“The Albatross” started as an exploration into the world of agencies, off the back of a change in wind I felt back in 2025. It seemed multiple factors were pressuring the agency scene to the point where one of the ways through might require a metamorphosis in how they saw themselves and operated. The metaphor of the albatross came up to carry that metamorphosis, to make it easy to visualise and feel my way through what I was sensing and imagining.
In the mind of the English reader, it may be that the image of the albatross harkens back to the tale of a certain ancient mariner and imagery of doom. To me, the albatross is an inspiring symbol of majesty, resilience and the ability to overcome. Hence my affinity for the metaphor and intrigue in exploring the agency scene from the perspective of an albatross that glides over the open water.
Design and branding agencies have traditionally sold craft and knowledge that were emerging in the marketplace, and that clients did not possess in-house. There was room to grow and stand out by virtue of market development, the novelty of the offer, and the ability to deploy it.
These, however, have become ubiquitous in a market proliferated with agencies, from the pioneers and the challengers to the networked and the independents, the nimble and the one-man bands. What was once in the hands of the few has reached the many and stopped being exclusive attributes that give agencies their agency.
This is not to say that excellent design craft and knowledge are easier to arrive at.
They remain prerequisites in a category where competition has increased, and shifts hit thick and fast. But it does mean that what craft and knowledge enable agencies and their clients to achieve, the reason why they’re deployed, is even more important.
Output is not the same as impact:
Enter the impact design and branding agencies generate as an attribute that builds their own agency. I define impact as the ability of a piece of work to answer the brief and move the needle for clients. This may mean advancing longer-term objectives such as transformation, changing brand perception, engaging the workforce or changing behaviours. It’s often lived by clients and qualified through the endorsement they provide agencies. It can also be measured, quantitatively, post-launch. Impact can also result from shorter- or medium-term work, such as campaigns, where client endorsement and relevant metrics can similarly attest to the change achieved.
However, agencies predominantly back up their value through the output they generate, such as identities, toolkits, activations, and qualitative endorsements, instead of leaning into the quantitative aspect of the impact they generate.
An understandable default setting, meant to say:
“We do design and branding. We’re very good at it. You should work with us. We’ve not just taken the money and run.”
Except that agencies are meant to be good at design and branding. And it’s what clients purchase. However, they purchase design and branding in the service of strategic business and brand objectives rather than for purely aesthetic reasons. In this context, I argue that presenting the impact they deliver, both the client perspective and the relevant metrics, is a natural step rather than the extra mile.
The discipline of quantitative proof:
Why do we not dial this up more?
It may be because we’ve aligned to certain industry expectations and habits too much. The accepted best practice of presenting the brief, the response, the sexy visuals may have become so cemented that it’s difficult to see beyond. We lean into client testimonials and the awards the work has won (the qualitative part of the proof), but haven’t necessarily freed up the quantitative, metrics-based approach that demonstrates its value as much.
Sometimes it’s because while client briefs specify the change desired, they don’t necessarily establish how it will be measured, and agencies end up working with no quantitative baseline for the needle they need to move. This is then more difficult to extract post-deployment.
Yet clients themselves need to understand the performance of their initiatives and document their own results. Therefore, I would argue that the opportunity for design and branding agencies is to actively shape the briefing stage, clarifying the impact desired, seeking access to and helping establish relevant measures (and metrics) of success, as well as collecting proof post launch.
Leveraging impact and its proof as a way of building agency is an intentional long game instead of a one-off brief, requiring agencies to hone their account handling, strategic and design delivery towards it. It’s a way of operating that can make its way to the heart of agency positioning, with wider agency functions evolving to support it (talent, business development, agency marketing).
Impact builds agency:
Design and branding agencies work with a significant amplifier of value client-side: organisational, product and service brands, creating what is their interface in the relationship with consumers, customers and audiences for five or ten years at a time.
Brands would show up in the world naked and amphibious without design and branding.
Impact, and the proof of it, is the opportunity to put a stake in the value generated and claim it as agency-enabled.
Impact amplifies agency credibility and client receptiveness, opening opportunities about how additional value may be delivered. It enhances agencies’ ability to act and gives them the teeth to pursue new ground and new work.
Impact therefore is a source of agency.
The state of things:
Impact demonstrated qualitatively and quantitatively seems to be there more today than a couple of years ago (based on the websites of 18 London-based design and branding agencies I’ve reviewed for this exercise). While the presentation of the work remains consistent across the board, a tiering seems to be developing when it comes to agencies’ interest in and capability to measure the impact they deliver.
Some have started placing quantitative proof of impact in a leading position in agency presentation. A larger number use it more selectively, while measurement tools are developed as a capability elsewhere in the market.
An approach worth mentioning is from Ragged Edge, who have placed quantitative proof prominently and nearly across the board in presenting their work. To me, it anchors the commercial impact of the services rendered and clarifies that design and branding can speak business.
Toblerone by Bulletproof is a case study that highlights quantitative proof of impact well and clearly links it to the brief.
A few holding-based design and branding agencies, already strong in qualitative client endorsements and industry awards, have started sharing quantitative proof of the impact their work achieves.
Finally, while Interbrand doesn’t publish a lot of the metrics-based proof, the Measure segment of its offer specialises in determining the quantitative value of brand. This may serve as a point of reference when determining what success should look like for brand briefs.
Open water:
And so, at the end of this first expedition into the world of agencies through the perspective of an albatross gliding over open water, the conclusion I’m left with is that one of the frontiers our industry should be pushing towards is normalising calling out the impact it delivers and the value it provides. Pursuing proof may therefore give design and branding agencies the teeth to pursue more impact and more proof, each cycle strengthening their ability to chart their own path. The beauty of this way of thinking and exploring our future is that there’s always more thinking and more frontiers to discover.
How has pursuing impact shaped internal processes, and the relationship with clients? What other horizons and areas of agency introspection does impact open and give access to?
Until next time.
Unmistakably,
Irina
Irina Gheorghe 
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