No Holding Back on “World Domination”: Indies Are Progressing by Productising

Independent agencies say productising services to solve client problems in a scalable way, establish a point of difference, and generate new revenue streams has been a “game changer”.

Dijitally, a web and digital experience agency in Sydney, created an accommodation booking engine called RoomStay. Founder Declan Mimnagh previously spent years leading Expedia’s creative and engineering teams, and wanted hotels and holiday parks to have the ability to drive more direct bookings and increase their revenue; they just needed access to the same capability as big players like his ex employer and booking.com.

“RoomStay was successfully incubated within Dijitally and is now a standalone business that helps properties convert more direct bookings and keep more of their revenue in-house,” Declan told LBB.

In Melbourne, BRX also spotted a problem it could alleviate: the time and cost of creative production at scale. Brand.OSX started out focusing on digital display advertising, but the onset of AI supercharged it -- it’s now an industrial system spanning motion, dynamic display, print, data, and more. Its purpose is to increase speed and precision to stop marketers from having to act as the “brand police”.

“And it takes away the pain of production because it is often in production of campaigns that a client-agency relationship really suffers,” CEO and founder Bridget Cleary explained, because “traditional campaigns can be slow, expensive, prone to human error and blow outs in cost and timings.”

One of its tools, called CopyX, rolls out AI-driven copy at scale, while DispatchX manages the dispatch process, and PerformX offers performance data. The system is modular -- so clients can use just the components they need -- and plugs into existing tech stacks.

“Most asset creation and automation systems are built by technologists,” Bridget added. “Our difference is that we have decades of experience building high-craft brand work, and have applied that to technology.”

Tower 28, which operates a flexible network promising vetted, best-in-class talent, and without fixed overheads, has also productised a need for speed. Global Authenticity and Insights Leader (GAIL) is built with large language models (LLMs) trained on cultural data, localisation expertise, and a bespoke methodology to help clients move at the speed of culture by understanding different markets, from clearance considerations to current trends.

“GAIL was a choiceful name,” Erin Emmerson, founder and CEO of Tower 28, said.

“We wanted something, not necessarily someone, that represented a human perspective but had technology at its centre. Of course, GAIL, quite literally embodies this as a human name, with ‘AI’ at the core.”

The Impact on Revenue and New Business

Bridget does not understate the “revolutionary” impact Brand.OSX has had on the business, calling it a “game changer”. By proactively solving clients’ pain points, it “changes the commercial relationship entirely” -- driving efficiencies for the client such as cost savings, time, and performance gains, and allowing BRX to increase its margin.

“Typically, it opens opportunities for us to do more with our clients, solving other complicated problems in their workflows or communications,” Bridget added. “And it definitely has increased our win-rate once we get in front of clients [plus] driven a lot of in-bound interest.”

Brand.OSX requires constant improvement and investment. A dedicated research and development team is charged with experimenting, iterating, and ensuring the platform is responding to the constant evolution of AI models.

RoomStay has become a lead generator and given Dijitally access to a new “layer” of clients too, Declan confirmed. Dijitally is continuing to work with enterprise travel, fintech, and e-commerce brands, while RoomStay charges a subscription fee that also includes Dijitally’s website, CRM, SEO, content, and social support.

“It’s created a more predictable, recurring revenue stream that gives us a stable foundation, while still letting us move fast and innovate around our clients’ needs,” Declan said.

“Many clients discover us through RoomStay because they’re looking for a booking solution, but once they see the impact it delivers, they often lean in to explore Dijitally’s broader digital and creative capabilities.

“It’s helped us connect with a wider audience from boutique properties to larger hospitality groups that might never have engaged with a digital agency otherwise.”

Tower 28’s GAIL has been used only internally so far, but this year, the agency will roll out access to select partners externally. “It will allow us to consider alternative revenue streams as we open it up to more clients and agency partners,” Erin said. She added it has already grown Tower 28’s business -- helping the agency deliver more work at more speed for clients like Expedia, Google, and OpenAI, and contributing “significantly” to the agency achieving ~300% growth in 2025.

“Like most great technologies, GAIL is rarely seen by our clients but instead felt. It's felt in speed and impact,” Erin explained.

“We aren't selling a technology, we're helping brands navigate an increasingly complex landscape and we use a combo of people and product to help solve that.”

In Service of Survival and Scale

Why are indies across the world productising their services? All three shops point to the long-term vision and experimentation that independence affords. Erin noted that while some holdcos have invested in proprietary tech and tools, “they typically have arrived late to the party due to a focus on short-term revenue and short-term share price. Products of this magnitude have a long tail impact and shareholder short-termism often makes this a luxury versus a necessity.

“Of course, we are now seeing some bigger businesses pay the price – or overpay for a price -- in acquiring late, just to meet the market.”

Indie founders are “problem solvers at heart,” Declan added. So when issues repeatedly crop up for clients, they are well-placed to spot and fix them.

“That’s where productisation comes in.” Bridget agreed. “It’s easy for us to just ‘have a go,’” she said. “We don’t need global approval to spend time or money on exploration. And we can move fast.”

​Tim Harvey, who works with each of the three indies via his consultancy, un-held, agreed, “independence is an incredible catalyst for ingenuity.” It gives businesses the “ability to explore and invest, without the distraction of simply hitting the numbers,” he said. “What I love about these businesses is that they have each not only diversified their revenue streams, but strengthened existing ones through productisation."

It’s also a strategy for survival in a tough market. Testing and learning is necessary, Bridget said, while Declan added, “Agency work naturally ebbs and flows, but a productised offering brings more consistency, more predictable revenue, and allows you to scale without compromising creativity.”

What’s Next? “World Domination”

All three indies have global plans. BRX is looking to scale Brand.OSX first in Australia, then the US. Dijitally is working across APAC and expanding into the US, Canada, and Europe. And Tower 28 is chasing “world domination, or at least helping our clients dominate the world without the dominating agency structures.”

Bridget’s BRX is starting to work with in-house teams thanks to Brand.OSX, and “we’re exploring other partnership models.” Erin is focused on hunting for more Fortune 500 companies to add to Tower 28’s client roster, which starts with evolving its “hyper-tailored” client experiences, and expanding GAIL to applications beyond advertising. After all, it is a cultural intelligence tool, and “culture crosses into every vertical, every communication and every corner of the earth,” Erin said.

“Tower 28 will continue to challenge the traditional model and show the industry that indies can deliver not only high quality work, but high-volume global work.”