This Week's Agency News Round-Up

January 15th 2026 - Mergers, Movers, and Campaign Creators

15 JANUARY 2026

1. Top Stories

Greg Tebbutt and Erich Funke introduce a reimagined creative agency, Fixer, built to eliminate many of the industry’s inefficiencies. Find out more about the new model they’ve created and why it could be the future for other agencies out there. Little Black Book Online has the scoop.

2. Account Moves & Launches

New Agency & brand partnerships

TV personality Phil Spencer has assigned a PR agency to work with Lodgesandcaravans.forsale, his online platform for holiday homeowners. PR Week has the details.

3. People & Leadership

Hires, promotions and notable exits

The European Business Review sat down with Christy Lee, founder and CEO of Seventh House Marketing to talk about how she scaled a fast-growing agency, embraced a hands-on approach to leadership, and built a brand rooted in agility, creativity, and community. See what she had to say.

4. Big Collaborations of The Week

Standout campaigns, launches or stunts

McCann Manchester share what they call the shining, shimmying manifestation of that post PureGym high. Take a look at all the amazing hard work that went into making this a reality in their LinkedIn post here.

As Netflix rolled out their first major TV redesign in over a decade to 300M+ subscribers, Oddfellows shares the brief and results of their work to create a new system of illustrated icons to surface key information at a glance and help people pick something faster. Check out the case study right here.

5. Trends & Talk

Lessons Learned and The Ins and Outs For 2026

In this Agency News Round-up we’re reflecting on 2025’s lessons learned, as well as what’s in and what’s out for 2026.

Lesson one: shiny doesn’t beat strategic
2025 brought new tools, louder platforms, faster processes, greater outputs… But the projects that really delivered impact were the ones grounded by clear objectives, joined-up data and a deep understanding of user behaviour. Novelty fades fast; good strategy doesn’t.

Lesson two: personalisation is finally growing up
We’ve moved beyond the benchmark of just “Hi, [FNAME]”, towards first-party data, smarter segmentation and AI-driven insights, to enable experiences that feel genuinely relevant. Knowing who you’re marketing to is in. Guessing? Out.

So, looking ahead to 2026, here’s a quick take on what’s in: experience-led design, data you can trust, integrated marketing journeys and inevitably, AI. What’s out is a one-size-fits-all, channel silos, vanity metrics and over-automation.

The brands and agencies that win in 2026 will be the most intentional.