What's Next, Agencies?

What's Next, Agencies? is an industry interview show about the changing shape of agency work. It is not a broad business podcast. Its center of gravity is the agency operating model: pitches, client collaboration, creative output, consulting work, leadership structures, technology, and the uneasy movement from campaign delivery toward more integrated forms of brand and business support. The show’s recent conversations are grounded in specific frictions. A discussion with the Gründerinnen von Harvest Consulting turns the pitch process into a question of working together earlier, testing economic understanding, and replacing some performance-heavy presentation rituals with collaboration workshops. An episode with Tobias Grimm looks at why the classic agency model can feel too slow, and why cultural marketing, creator talent, technology, websites, funnels, and product thinking now sit closer together. With Adel Gelbert, the focus shifts to content marketing after the first wave of hype, where AI, new search behavior, efficiency pressure, and consulting value all complicate the old production-led model. Brand-side perspectives from Janine Schumann and Susanne Marohn bring in orchestration, ecosystem thinking, lead agency definitions, and the need for agencies to speak directly even when the conversation is uncomfortable. Andreas Weber’s episode brings the discussion inside the organization itself, especially around self-organization, responsibility, uncertainty, and the fact that not every strong employee wants the same amount of freedom. The show is measured. It gives room to long answers and uses jargon as normal working vocabulary, but keeps returning abstract ideas to roles, budgets, team setups, client rules, and actual ways of working. It is best for listeners who already understand the agency world well enough to care about its mechanics. The appeal is not prediction for its own sake. The appeal is hearing people inside the system reason through what has stopped fitting, what they are trying instead, and where transformation becomes real work.