What exists between the categories
When Spotify was looking for a lead agency for the German-speaking market in 2021, they chose DOJO – a Berlin-based agency that not only develops campaigns, but also produces films, runs a music label, and initiates social projects. Heiner Kuhlmann, then Head of Marketing GSA at Spotify, explained the decision as follows: “Dojo is more than a creative agency – and that’s exactly what we were looking for.”
That sentence stuck with me. Not because of DOJO, but because it reveals something about shifting client expectations. In episode #170 of “What’s Next, Agencies”, founder and CEO Dominic Czaja explained that he had put the word “agency” in quotation marks from the very beginning, because he never knew what DOJO would become – and never wanted to define it. What emerged was not a master plan, but a consistent curiosity that extended beyond disciplinary boundaries.
That may sound like an exception, a Berlin-specific phenomenon. It is more than that.
Kim Notz
18. March 2026
Experts for Everything
For a long time, the logic was clear: specialization leads to excellence, and excellence leads to success. Agencies structured their offerings accordingly, built teams around disciplines, and sharpened their profiles. Social here, strategy there. Creative in one corner, media in another. And those in between – the people translating between strategy and creative, mediating between client and production, maintaining an overview across channels – were given titles such as “Project Manager” or “Account Director.” Important roles, yes. But rarely the stars.
There was a rationale behind this. Complexity increases, so you need experts for every layer of complexity. Channel proliferation, data overload, technology stacks – each new challenge requires a new specialist profile.
The problem is that the most critical client challenges have never adhered to disciplinary boundaries.
A brand that is losing relevance does not have an SEO problem. Nor a social media problem. Nor a creative problem. It has a problem with who it is, and why that should matter to anyone. This question cannot be answered within a single silo, because it emerges in the space between them. Anyone attempting to solve it must keep all silos open at once.
What AI Is Changing
Specialist knowledge has been valuable because it was scarce. A strong SEO expert, an experienced social strategist, a skilled data analyst – these profiles commanded high value because not everyone could deliver them.
AI is quietly but fundamentally changing this equation. Many tasks that agencies previously assigned to specialists can now be executed faster, more cost-effectively, and at a high level of quality by machines: content variations, data summaries, channel adaptations, research. Specialist knowledge is not becoming obsolete, but its scarcity is diminishing.
At the same time, something else is becoming scarcer – something harder to define, and therefore easy to overlook: contextual thinking. The ability to identify problems that remain structurally invisible within siloed systems.
A practical example: A brand has been investing in high-performing content for two years. Strong reach, solid engagement metrics. Yet brand preference stagnates. The social specialist sees no issue – the numbers are strong. The creative director agrees – the ideas are well received. The strategist sees no problem either – the positioning is clearly defined.
What is missing is someone who sees the connection: that the content increases visibility, but not distinctiveness. That reach and identity are not the same, and that their divergence does not appear within any single discipline, but between them. This problem does not show up in any report. It has no assigned silo. And an AI optimized for individual disciplines will not detect it.
This is not a leadership task, nor a soft skill. It is a distinct capability: connecting elements that belong to different domains. Recognizing when something works, but is not right. Guiding a client through multiple disciplines toward a coherent outcome – not as a coordinator, but as someone who genuinely understands the bigger picture.
This capability has always existed. It has simply never been valued accordingly.
Who Is Already There?
The good news is: these people already exist in almost every agency. They often sit in roles that sound like coordination, but actually deliver synthesis:
- They truly understand a briefing before passing it on.
- They notice when disciplines are talking past each other.
- They understand the client – not just the assignment, but the broader context.
Benjamin Minack, founder of RYSM (formerly ressourcenmangel), puts it succinctly in episode #166: clients are increasingly losing the ability to orchestrate a fragmented communication landscape themselves – and are therefore looking for someone close enough to maintain that overview on their behalf. The term “proxy advisor” may feel somewhat awkward, but the underlying idea is precise: it is not about specialist knowledge, but about contextual competence.
The question is whether agencies are recognizing these people. Whether their career paths are visible. Whether their capability is named – or whether we continue to treat them as the invisible oil in the machine.
DOJO never published a manifesto about generalists. They simply remained curious, pursued connections where others drew boundaries – and in doing so developed a profile that does not fit into any silo, and is precisely for that reason in demand.
This is not an exception. It is a direction. And the first step is not transformation, but taking a closer look at what is already there.
