Influencer marketing spend hit $33 billion in a single year, growing 37% year over year, according to Omnicom Media Group’s internal research. So who gets to manage it: the ad holding companies that have run brand budgets for a century, or the Hollywood talent agencies suddenly circling the same money? The brand budget war between Madison Avenue and Beverly Hills is no longer hypothetical. It’s already showing up in your next RFP.
Both sides are spending real capital to win. Both sides have a credible pitch. And both sides are, frankly, a little late to a party where the brand is increasingly throwing itself.
Madison Avenue Didn’t Wait Around
The holding companies saw this coming and moved early, buying their way into the creator economy rather than building from scratch. Omnicom Media Group consolidated its influencer capabilities under a single brand called Creo, and the numbers behind that move are the real story. Omnicom cited research reporting that global influencer marketing spend will reach $33 billion in a single year, up 37% from the prior year. That’s not a rounding error on a media plan. That’s a channel holding companies cannot afford to treat as an add-on anymore.
Publicis took the acquisition route aggressively. It bought Influential, then Captiv8, then a Brazil-based network with hundreds of thousands of creators. The pattern across Publicis, Dentsu, WPP, Omnicom and Havas is consistent: holding companies are no longer content to broker campaigns, and are instead building full-stack influencer infrastructures that own everything from creator discovery and content production to commerce enablement and performance measurement. This matters for brand strategists because it changes what you’re actually buying. You’re no longer hiring an agency to find creators. You’re being sold access to a data stack that integrates creator data into an identity graph, positioning influencer marketing as a measurable commerce channel linked to transaction data and business outcomes.
That’s a strong pitch for a CFO. It’s a weaker pitch for anyone who has watched holding companies struggle to move at creator speed.
A BCG and Google survey of 990 marketing leaders found holding company agencies ranked dead last among partner options for influencer marketing, AI creative, AI discovery, and agentic commerce, the four categories pulling in the most new budget.
Hollywood’s Counterpunch: Buy the Talent, Skip the Pitch Deck
While the holdcos were consolidating, the talent agencies decided the fastest way in wasn’t to build a media planning product. It was to own the supply. Forbes reported on the scale of this bet, and it’s bigger than most marketers realize. CAA and TPG-backed Integrated Media Company launched Compound Creative Holdings, a $250 million company that buys stakes in creator-built businesses and helps run them. WME launched Creator Labs, invested in video firm Astra Media and expanded its creator sales team, while UTA says its creator division has tripled revenue in five years.
This isn’t a side hustle for the Big Three anymore. Market research from Dataintelo frames digital creators as the fastest-growing client segment the agencies have, and the dollar commitment backs that up: digital creators and influencers are the fastest growing client group at 10.3% a year, and CAA committed $250 million with TPG to buy creator businesses. CAA isn’t just signing creators to standard representation deals either. It’s treating the creator economy as an asset class, one it valued at more than $250 billion as of mid-year.
WME’s pitch to brands is different from its pitch to agents. Joanne Lee, who runs WME’s Creator Labs, put it plainly to Forbes: talent is building careers “more and more direct to consumer,” which means the agency’s job has shifted from deal-making to operating the business behind the audience. That’s a meaningfully different value proposition than a holding company selling you a media buying platform. It’s a relationship play dressed up as infrastructure, and for brands that want access to specific creators rather than a programmatic pool of them, it’s compelling.
Read our coverage of how CAA and WME are reshaping deal leverage for a deeper look at what this means for negotiating power on your next creator contract.
Here’s the Uncomfortable Part: Neither May Be Who You Hire
While CAA and Publicis fight over who owns the creator relationship, a lot of brands have quietly stopped caring. The 2026 Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report found that influencer marketing is primarily owned in-house, with 66.3% of respondents reporting they run programs entirely in-house. Only about a fifth of brands use an agency fully or partially. That’s a number both Madison Avenue and Hollywood need to reckon with before they spend another dollar on creator infrastructure.
It gets worse for the incumbents when you look at where brands say they’d place new budget. A BCG and Google survey covered by StrategyEye asked 990 marketing leaders across ten countries which partner they’d trust with four growth categories. The result wasn’t close. Only 36% would consider a holding company agency for AI creative work, just 25% picked one for AI discovery, agentic commerce dropped to 30%, and influencer marketing landed at 26%. Holding companies finished last in every single category tested.
That doesn’t mean talent agencies are winning that budget by default. It means brands increasingly trust nobody’s full-service pitch, and they’re building the muscle internally instead. The function brands are least willing to outsource is the one that decides who gets credit for results: reporting and analytics sits at just 6.9%, a clear sign brands want to keep control over the numbers even when they outsource the labor that produces them.
This is the real insight for anyone managing a 2027 budget. The fight isn’t just Madison Avenue versus Hollywood. It’s both of them versus the in-house team that already built a Slack channel with twelve micro-creators and a spreadsheet that outperforms either agency’s deck.
What Brands Are Actually Outsourcing (and Why It’s Not Strategy)
Here’s where it gets practical. Brands running programs in-house aren’t doing everything alone. They’re outsourcing specific, painful bottlenecks and keeping everything else close. Creator discovery and vetting is the most commonly outsourced function, followed by content production, with talent management, paid amplification, and fraud detection each sitting around the middle, and contracting or negotiation work close behind.
That ordering tells you exactly where Madison Avenue and Hollywood need to compete if they want a seat at the table. Nobody is hiring an agency of record to own strategy anymore. They’re hiring specialists to solve a specific, measurable problem: find the right nano-creator fast, produce usage-rights-cleared content at volume, or run fraud checks a lean internal team doesn’t have bandwidth for. If you’re evaluating partners for the year ahead, our breakdown of what to ask before the next RFP walks through exactly these accountability gaps.
This is also where the compliance and payout risk conversation gets real. As more deals shift to performance structures, brands are rewriting how they underwrite risk on both sides of the relationship. Our reporting on performance deals hitting 43 percent of contracts is worth a close read if either a holding company or a talent agency is pitching you a new payment model this quarter.
Who Actually Wins?
Honestly, it depends on what you’re buying. If you need programmatic scale, measurement infrastructure, and the ability to run thousands of nano and micro-creator deals with usage rights baked in, the holding companies’ data stacks have a real edge, particularly as they tie creator activity to identity graphs and commerce outcomes. If you need access to a specific creator with crossover ambitions, someone who wants a book deal, a Netflix option, or a touring schedule alongside the brand deal, the talent agencies have relationships Madison Avenue will never replicate.
But the agencies on both sides of Fifth Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard should be worried about a third competitor neither of them controls: the brand’s own team. As creator budgets triple and in-house capability matures, the leverage is shifting toward whoever owns the data and the creator relationship directly. That’s often neither Madison Avenue nor Hollywood. For more on how that leverage shift is playing out deal by deal, see our coverage of creator holding companies flipping negotiation leverage and how Fortune 500 teams are building real budget and compliance authority internally.
FAQs
Are talent agencies actually competing with ad holding companies for brand marketing budgets?
Yes. CAA, WME, and UTA have each built dedicated creator and brand-consulting divisions, with CAA committing capital through a dedicated creator investment vehicle and WME expanding its creator sales team, directly targeting the same brand marketing dollars that holding companies like Publicis, Omnicom, and WPP have historically controlled.
Why are holding companies losing ground in influencer marketing specifically?
A BCG and Google survey of marketing leaders ranked holding company agencies last among partner options for influencer marketing, AI creative, AI discovery, and agentic commerce, the four fastest-growing budget categories, suggesting brands see holding companies as slower and less specialized than newer entrants.
Should a brand hire a talent agency or an ad agency for influencer campaigns?
It depends on the goal. Ad holding companies offer measurement infrastructure, programmatic scale, and data integration across identity graphs. Talent agencies offer deeper relationships with specific high-value creators and crossover opportunities into film, music, or publishing. Many brands are increasingly skipping both and managing core program strategy in-house while outsourcing narrow functions like creator vetting or content production.
Is influencer marketing budget actually moving away from agencies entirely?
Most programs are now run entirely in-house according to the 2026 Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report, with only about a fifth of brands using agencies fully or partially. Agencies are increasingly hired for specific execution tasks rather than full program ownership.
What should brands watch for in 2027 budget planning?
Watch where accountability for reporting and ROI sits. Brands are keeping measurement and analytics in-house even when they outsource creator discovery or content production, which means any agency or talent partnership pitch should be evaluated on execution speed and specialist expertise, not strategic ownership of the channel.
The takeaway for your 2027 planning cycle: stop asking whether Madison Avenue or Hollywood wins the budget war, and start auditing which specific, narrow function each potential partner actually does better than your internal team. Hire for that gap, keep the reporting layer in-house, and renegotiate every retainer that still bills for “strategy” you’re already doing yourself.
Top Influencer Marketing Agencies
The leading agencies shaping influencer marketing in 2026
Agencies ranked by campaign performance, client diversity, platform expertise, proven ROI, industry recognition, and client satisfaction. Assessed through verified case studies, reviews, and industry consultations.
Moburst
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The Shelf
Boutique Beauty & Lifestyle Influencer AgencyA data-driven boutique agency specializing exclusively in beauty, wellness, and lifestyle influencer campaigns on Instagram and TikTok. Best for brands already focused on the beauty/personal care space that need curated, aesthetic-driven content.Clients: Pepsi, The Honest Company, Hims, Elf Cosmetics, Pure LeafVisit The Shelf → -
3
Audiencly
Niche Gaming & Esports Influencer AgencyA specialized agency focused exclusively on gaming and esports creators on YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok. Ideal if your campaign is 100% gaming-focused — from game launches to hardware and esports events.Clients: Epic Games, NordVPN, Ubisoft, Wargaming, Tencent GamesVisit Audiencly → -
4
Viral Nation
Global Influencer Marketing & Talent AgencyA dual talent management and marketing agency with proprietary brand safety tools and a global creator network spanning nano-influencers to celebrities across all major platforms.Clients: Meta, Activision Blizzard, Energizer, Aston Martin, WalmartVisit Viral Nation → -
5
The Influencer Marketing Factory
TikTok, Instagram & YouTube CampaignsA full-service agency with strong TikTok expertise, offering end-to-end campaign management from influencer discovery through performance reporting with a focus on platform-native content.Clients: Google, Snapchat, Universal Music, Bumble, YelpVisit TIMF → -
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NeoReach
Enterprise Analytics & Influencer CampaignsAn enterprise-focused agency combining managed campaigns with a powerful self-service data platform for influencer search, audience analytics, and attribution modeling.Clients: Amazon, Airbnb, Netflix, Honda, The New York TimesVisit NeoReach → -
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Ubiquitous
Creator-First Marketing PlatformA tech-driven platform combining self-service tools with managed campaign options, emphasizing speed and scalability for brands managing multiple influencer relationships.Clients: Lyft, Disney, Target, American Eagle, NetflixVisit Ubiquitous → -
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Obviously
Scalable Enterprise Influencer CampaignsA tech-enabled agency built for high-volume campaigns, coordinating hundreds of creators simultaneously with end-to-end logistics, content rights management, and product seeding.Clients: Google, Ulta Beauty, Converse, AmazonVisit Obviously →