A Love Story Older Than Television The tension between CMOs and advertising agencies didn’t start with AI, procurement, or any media disruption. And history makes one thing clear: Agencies only gain power when CMOs don’t — or can’t — fully exercise theirs. It’s embedded in the very origin of the advertising agency itself. To understand today’s agency (CMO power dynamics) you must look at how agencies have repeatedly risen — and fallen — based on where strategic authority sits inside a business. Agencies Were Never Born To Lead The first advertising agencies weren’t strategists or storytellers. They were brokers — “middlemen” reselling newspaper space. Their value came from access, not insight. Strategy lived with the advertiser and agencies executed what brands decided. That origin story matters; it reveals a truth many agencies still resist — authority has never belonged to them . The advertiser defined the message, the agency placed it, and CMOs began to succumb to the next wave of change.…