DO WE STILL NEED SUITS?
Short answer:
Yes. Absolutely. Unequivocally.
Longer answer:
Only if you want clients to stay. And come back. And grow.
“Can’t we just replace suits with creatives or UX?”
Someone asked us that recently, with a straight face.
We smiled politely and waited for the punchline.
It didn’t come.
Let’s be clear: the modern account lead — the so-called “suit” — is not some surplus relic from the Mad Men era.
They’re the translator, the tactician, the fixer, the diplomat, the deal-closer, the fire-stomper, and the one still smiling at 8:17pm on a Tuesday when the client needs “one last amends.”
A day in the life (you couldn’t hack it)
She’s fresh off a year of delivering real commercial results:
Campaigns that worked. Clients that grew. A few million in retained revenue.
Her reward?
A lukewarm C+ in the client’s annual review and a passive-aggressive “room for improvement” in her inbox.
Now she’s chasing a 20% organic growth target, compiling 47 names from a sales list that looks like it was spat out by ChatGPT on three hours of sleep, and trying to get a client to approve great work without referencing their boss’s boss’s feedback from three weeks ago.
Somehow, she does it.
And when a pitch lands?
She corrals the creatives. Buys the coffees. Calms the wobble. Manages the madness.
Even when the brief is for “innovative awareness comms” for a plastic piping manufacturer in Huddersfield.
Suits get stuff done.
They’re not just middle managers.
They’re the ones holding the creative ambition and the business logic in the same hand —
and making sure both stay alive long enough to go out the door.
They’re the bridge between the magic and the money.
The commercial conscience.
The ones who know how to say, “This is great — but here’s how we make it sell.”
The suit–creative partnership is essential friction.
You can call it tension. We call it chemistry.
It’s the classic combo: tea and biscuits. Salt and caramel. Reality and ambition.
Different energies. Same goal.
Suits challenge ideas to be sharper.
Creatives challenge suits to be bolder.
And when they’re both good — the work sings, the relationship strengthens, and the agency wins.
So no, we don’t need fewer suits.
We need better ones.
People who understand business, brands, and big ideas.
People who can speak marketing and finance and still know what’s cool.
People who don’t just manage accounts — they lead them.
Suits aren’t going anywhere.
And frankly, if you’re running an agency without them… good luck.
SHA. is a strategic advertising agency, creating brand strategy, advertising, design for print and content for web and social. If you want to know more, get in touch with nigelh@sha-agency.com or visit our contacts page.
“The opinions in this article are that of the author alone and in no way, reflect the opinions or viewpoint of the agency. Unless of course we happen to agree with those opinions completely, in which case they might, but otherwise they don’t”
