There are three ways to buy senior brand thinking: hire an agency, hire a fractional CMO, or hire a brand consultancy. They cost different amounts, they fail in different ways, and most companies pick the wrong one because they pick on price instead of on the problem. The short version: an agency when you need hands, a fractional CMO when you need a manager, a consultancy when you need the moves.
I’ve sat on every side of this. I ran brand and marketing inside Nike, Activision, Twitter and WWE, hired every kind of agency, and spent a stretch as a fractional marketing lead before starting Secret Menu. Here’s how the three actually differ, from the inside.
The agency
An agency is headcount. You’re buying a team: account lead, strategist, creative director, a few people under each, and production behind them. That’s the model’s strength. If you need a campaign built, shot, cut and trafficked across twelve markets by a date, an agency is the only one of the three that can do it alone.
It’s also the model’s cost. Agencies price on people and time, so a retainer has to feed a team whether or not your problem needs one this month. The senior people you met in the pitch move on to the next pitch. The work gets done by whoever’s available. And there’s markup on everything that gets produced.
Where it goes wrong: you hire an agency because you don’t know what to do, and you get a lot of done things. Content, not direction. The agency isn’t lying to you. It’s just that “what should we do” isn’t the product. “Make this” is.
Pick an agency when you know the strategy, you’ve got real production volume, and you need capacity more than judgment.
The fractional CMO
A fractional CMO is a part time executive. Two days a week, maybe three, running your marketing function: managing the team, owning the budget, reporting to the CEO, sitting in the leadership meeting. It’s a staffing solution, and it’s a good one for a company that needs a marketing leader and can’t yet justify a full time one.
The trade is that you’re buying management time. A fractional CMO’s week fills up with the same things a full time CMO’s does: hiring, vendors, dashboards, the board deck. The strategic thinking happens in the gaps. And because the category is priced as a fraction of a salary, the market treats it like a salary: a day rate, a number of days, a comparison against what a hire would cost.
Where it goes wrong: you hire one to fix the brand and they spend six months fixing the function. Sometimes that’s what you needed. Often it’s not what you asked for.
Pick a fractional CMO when the problem is that nobody’s running marketing, and the brand is fine.
The brand consultancy
A consultancy is one senior person, or a very small number of them, who solves a defined problem and stays until the answer ships. Positioning. A launch. A creator strategy. The creative direction that turns a strategy into something a team can build. You get the person you met, every time, with no account layer in between.
It’s priced against the outcome, not the hours. A consultancy doesn’t need to feed a team, so it can scope a four week sprint or a launch engagement at a fixed number. There’s no production markup because there’s no production, though a good one will direct your production partners and tell you when you’re being overcharged.
Where it goes wrong: you hire a consultancy and expect hands. If the engagement ends with a strategy and a creative platform but nobody on your side to make it, you’ll have a very good PDF. The fix is either a team that can execute, or a consultancy that stays through production. Ask which one you’re getting before you sign.
Pick a consultancy when the problem is what to do, not how to do more of it.
Side by side
| Agency | Fractional CMO | Brand consultancy | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you’re buying | A team and production capacity | A part time marketing leader | Senior judgment on a defined problem |
| Who does the work | Whoever’s staffed after the pitch | The person you hired, part of the week | The person you hired, all of it |
| How it’s priced | Retainer plus production markup | Day rate, fraction of a salary | Fixed project or monthly scope |
| Best for | Executing a known strategy at volume | Running a function that has no leader | Positioning, launches, creator strategy, creative direction |
| Fails when | You needed direction, not output | You needed brand work, not management | You had no one to execute |
The question that sorts it
Ask yourself what you’d do if the brand problem were solved tomorrow. If the answer is “we’d still need someone to make all of it,” you need an agency or an in house team. If it’s “we’d still need someone to run marketing,” you need a CMO, fractional or otherwise. If it’s “we’d be fine, we just don’t know what the move is,” that’s a consultancy.
Most companies I talk to are in the third group and have been buying the first.
01What's the difference between a brand consultancy and an agency?
An agency sells a team and production capacity, priced on time and markup. A consultancy sells senior judgment on a defined problem, priced on the outcome. Agencies execute. Consultancies decide what to execute.
02Is a fractional CMO the same as a brand consultant?
No. A fractional CMO is a part time executive who runs your marketing function. A brand consultancy solves a specific brand problem like positioning or a launch and isn’t managing your team.
03When should a company hire a brand consultancy instead of an agency?
When the problem is strategy rather than capacity. If you don’t know what the brand should do next, a consultancy answers that. If you know and need it built, an agency builds it.
04Can a brand consultancy work alongside an agency?
Yes, and it’s often the best setup. The consultancy sets the strategy and creative direction, the agency executes it, and the brand gets senior thinking without paying agency rates for it.