‘We’re getting that Brooklyn energy back’ – Huge on finding its groove after IPG exit (2025)

The agency that had been lauded for boundary-pushing work like the Pepsi Refresh Project or the HBO Go campaign was faced with clients significantly cutting spend, leading then-chief exec Mat Baxter to embark on a round of layoffs. A year later, another round. Baxter overhauled the group’s structure and brought in a productization model to radically change the way it worked with clients before he too left the business. Baxter was replaced, in January 2024, by Lisa De Bonis, who has since overseen its sale from Interpublic Group to private equity firm AEA Investors.

You’re not wrong to think this story sounds familiar. It was a similar script for sister agency R/GA, which faced many of the same challenges under IPG before being sold to TrueLink Capital last year. While R/GA is still mapping its new course post-independence, Huge is 10 months down the line.

“Our growth trajectory and the new [clients] we were winning had already started,” says chief technology officer Marc Maleh. He worked at Huge between 2019 and 2021, then moved client-side to Crypto.com and Valtech before returning to the agency last June.

“We’d brought back this passion and swagger to the agency. We were like: ‘actually, we know how to do this. The agency knows how to do this. We’ve been doing it for 25 years.’ Bringing that energy and culture back, frankly, started before we left IPG.”

Maleh wasn’t the only new starter. Ez Blaine, chief creative officer, timed his move to Huge almost exactly with the sale getting underway last summer. “Rather than feeling dread, it was more excitement, because I know what being independent can do for an agency,” says the Wieden+Kennedy and Uncommon alumnus. “It was getting that Brooklyn energy back, getting that bit of that fire back.”

The numbers seemingly back this sentiment. According to a recent press release, Huge has seen a fivefold uptick in new business quarter over quarter. In recent months, the agency says its growth has doubled.

“Every single member of Huge is aware of their impact on what’s happening in the business,” says Blaine of the momentum. “In holding companies, things can get a little bit, you know, wishy washy when you’re in it. And now we’re independent, that mentality is throughout every single member of the team. Everyone is standing up and giving a shit.”

But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. Both Blaine and Maleh talk of the growing pains of reorganizing and the integration with Hero Digital, a digital consultancy that joined the AEA roster of companies in 2021. Back then, Hero worked with brands like Comcast, US Bank, Twitter, Salesforce and Jefferson Health on transformation projects, most notably in the e-commerce space.

Maleh explains the marriage today: “We know how to do the executional side. But Hero Digital has a framework for how to work with Adobe or Salesforce, and that’s amazing. Technology innovation and design innovation come from the Huge side and the infrastructure and commerce side, Hero brings to the table.”

The merger of Hero into Huge was made official last week but they’ve been joint pitching on new business since January. And for ongoing projects, Blaine and Maleh been taking the Hero Digital skillset out to clients to “upgrade” what they’re doing for clients.

“It’s been incredible to bolster our team. I’ve just been excited about having those conversations with potential clients, going back and saying: ‘Hey, we can now do this. Are you into this?’” says Blaine. “These two combined are what’s going to be the engine of creativity for the company.”

One concern might have been whether Huge would still command the same attention from blue-chip clients as an independent. As critical as the two execs might be of the holding company structure now they are out of it, being part of the IPG fold arguably got them a seat at certain tables. But, both say the biggest change to the business since leaving has been how quickly it’s been able to build “deeper” relationships with clients.

“The fact that I work at a place called Huge is the thing they care about. Whether Huge is owned by a private equity company or a holding company, it’s almost irrelevant. They want the humans who understand the work and what’s going to drive their business,” says Maleh.

It already had the likes of Google, NBCUniversal and Planet Fitness on its books and since the AEA takeover has worked with PlayStation on its latest campaign and was involved in the Super Bowl work for Stellantis' Ram Trucks brand.

Maleh continues: “The response we’re hearing from a lot of the clients is whether this is going to change the way I work with Huge. Kind of simple, right? And if the answer is ‘No, but we can do these five other things for you as well. Is that interesting?’ ... a lot of the clients are saying they’ve been looking for an agency that can do the whole suite of services. So the response from clients has been very positive.”

Like virtually every ad agency right now, Huge is trying to define its AI offer. AI-driven projects have surged, it says, with 62% of clients incorporating AI and generative AI into projects. That figure is up from 25% in June 2024.

To that end, it has established Huge IX or Intelligent Experiences, which is all about showing clients advanced, future-facing projects driven by AI. The agency touts its work for NCB Universal for the Paris Olympic Games, where it created an AI chat experience to help viewers navigate over 7,000 hours of competitions as a prime example of this division in action.

“We’re not bashing their heads with it, but we’re making sure we say: ‘Guys, listen, you might not be ready for this, but here’s a little taste of the future.’ That’s what Huge has always done. We’re working on it now, but also the next. So we’re always making sure there’s a little bit of thread to the future. We want to be a guide to this AI wave,” says Blaine.

AI experiments aside, the key objective is sustained growth over the next six months. For that, Huge is now looking to hire more people and considering strategic acquisitions.

“We have growth targets, we have revenue targets. The freedom that we have is how we achieve it. The only methodology before was net new clients or organic growth. And now suddenly we have other options of how we achieve that,” adds Maleh.

“We’re exploring options that maybe previously weren’t available to us within the holding company model. That freedom is really nice. It might not be that we need to acquire another agency, or it might actually be that there’s an interesting software company out there that we could only previously think about licensing from. The fact that we can even have those conversations is interesting.”