Why are indie agencies thriving in a semi-broken advertising economy?

Sam Stuchbury is the executive creative director and founder of Motion Sickness, and Lee Lowndes is the chief executive and founder of Daylight. Each of them run independent creative agencies, each is under 40, each took home golds at the recent Axis Awards, and - most importantly - each has a very differentiated conception of what an agency is in 2026. They have each found a way to thrive in an era where many of the big ad agencies feel defined more by their challenges than opportunities.Motion Sickness is on some kind of hot streak, and has just made the decision to rebrand as a creative company over an ad agency. That hasn’t stopped them taking home a raft of advertising awards. Cannes Lions have called them one of the top five global independent agencies this year, they took the Grand Prix for their herpes work, and were just named agency of the year at Axis for their Māori roll call, and their brilliantly original work helping bring people back to Karangahape Road.Daylight, meanwhile, defines itself as a “creative and technology studio”, meaning it builds digital products then wraps campaigns around them to get those apps to the right audiences. Its most recent output is Billy, a highly sophisticated tool to get consumers onto the best energy plan, with a major media campaign to help build awareness of it. They’ve also built platforms for media organisations like the Pacific Media Network and Fiji Sun, along with continuing their work for the World Health Organization.Duncan Greive is a shareholder and co-founder of Daylight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Why are indie agencies thriving in a semi-broken advertising economy? is an episode from The Fold by The Spinoff.

This episode is 50:15 long.

This episode was published on Apr 27, 2026.

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