What I learned moving from agency to brand side

Photography and writing by Luis Marques

Two surfers carrying surfboards walk across sandy beach toward the ocean with gentle waves, black and white photo.

When I moved from agency to brand side,

it didn’t feel that different at first. The briefs were familiar, the timelines were similar, and the type of work didn’t seem to change much.

But over time, the differences start to show up. The biggest one is what the work is expected to do.

At an agency, the goal is often to make something great. Something that stands out and gets noticed. On the brand side, the expectation is simpler, but harder. It has to work. Not just once, and not just for a single campaign. It has to hold up across channels, across markets, and over time.

Another shift is how close you are to the work after it’s made.

An outdoor patio area with a table and four chairs. The chairs cast shadows on the ground, along with the shadow of a nearby tree and a rectangular object, possibly a bench or a crate. The scene is in black and white.

At the agency,

you present it and move on. On the brand side, you stay with it. You see what performs, what scales, what gets cut, and what doesn’t land. That changes how you think. You stop asking only if something is good, and start asking whether it will hold up, whether it can stretch, and whether it can actually do something.

You also get much closer to the business. Performance isn’t something you read about later. You see it as it happens. And you understand quickly that taste alone isn’t enough. The work has to move something.

One thing that stood out to me is how important proximity is. The closer people are to the work, the better it gets. When brand managers, strategists, and creatives are all looking at the same thing and trying to solve the same problem, the work improves. Not because everyone is a creative, but because everyone brings a point of view. The role of a creative is to shape that.

Moving to the brand side didn’t change what I care about. I still care about craft, about ideas that feel human, and about work people remember. But it changed how I approach it. Now I think more about whether it holds up, whether it scales, and whether it works.

Because in the end, the work isn’t judged by how it looks in a deck. It’s judged by what it does in the world.

Pink building with blue doors and white awnings, colorful chairs outside, and a manicured green tree in front.

“When brand managers, strategists, and creatives are all looking at the same thing and trying to solve the same problem, the work improves.”

—Luis Marques