This Week's Agency News Round-Up

January 29th 2026 - Mergers, Movers, and Campaign Creators

29 JANUARY 2026

1. Top Stories

Drummond Central’s ‘Breaking News’ campaign for bet365 has just been featured in the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising)’s Showcasing Creativity in the North East editorial. Here’s how they reflected on the success in a LinkedIn post.

2. Account Moves & Launches

New Agency & brand partnerships

Connected3 launched C3create, their new approach to Connected Creativity, bringing every part of the creative process under one roof to move at the speed of culture. Learn more about C3create right here.

Sheffield-based B2B creative marketing agency Objective has launched a new sister company in the US. Here’s Insider Media with the details.

Manchester-based ecommerce specialist PushON Commerce Group has launched Connect, a new performance marketing agency designed to help online retailers cut through the complexity of multi-channel marketing and focus on what drives growth and revenue. Here’s Prolific North to tell us more.

3. People & Leadership

Hires, promotions and notable exits

Creative agency Milk & Tweed has appointed a new Senior Client Partner to help clients make the most of its expertise. Meg Fenner-Jamieson is taking on the role and says it will strengthen the way it works with clients. Insider Media has more information.

Strategic communications agency Be Bold is investing in growth in 2026, appointing associate director Sarai Gil, who brings 15 years experience in digital projects and strategy to the 10-strong team based near Newport. Read more on Shropshire Live.

4. Big Collaborations of The Week

Standout campaigns, launches or stunts

Riot & Rebel has launched a new website for Manchester Youth Zone (MYZ), a project designed to help more young people and families access vital support, while boosting the charity’s ability to raise funds through donations, fundraising and corporate partnerships. Prolific North broke the news on LinkedIn here.

5. Trends & Talk

Today we’re asking, “what’s hot” in agency land right now?

Our answer: already in early 2026, the conversation is shifting from AI as a time-saver to AI as a business outcome driver, with brands demanding measurable impact over experiment-for-experiment’s-sake.

At the same time, emerging regulatory expectations mean AI transparency is moving from nice-to-have to non-negotiable. Commerce media networks are on the rise, pushing agencies to blend performance creativity with measurable conversion work. And on the creative side, modular content systems are becoming a new standard for agile, platform-agnostic storytelling.

What does all that mean for the rest of Q1 and beyond? For agencies, the challenge now isn’t whether to adopt AI, but how credibly, transparently, and commercially they can make it work. Got your own thoughts on what’s hot in agency land right now? Let us know and join the conversation.