Chemistry ad agency compared with the independent shops beside it: what each one published on 21 October 2026
Chemistry is an independent full service agency with offices in four American cities. Here is what it puts on its own site, how that reads against another independent of similar standing, and the two numbers neither of them publishes.
Published by AI Knows Us · Updated 21 October 2026
Chemistry is an American independent agency. Read on chemistryagency.com on 21 October 2026, it describes itself as "a full-service hybrid agency designed for an uncertain world" and as "a hybrid agency built on experimentation, where creative, digital, and media minds work as one". It lists offices in Atlanta, Pittsburgh, New York and Miami. If you are searching the name you are either considering hiring it or sizing it against an alternative, so this page does both on one criterion: what each firm publishes that a buyer can check before the first call.
What Chemistry publishes about itself
| Published on its own site, 21 October 2026 | |
|---|---|
| What it calls itself | A full service hybrid agency; creative, digital and media working as one |
| Offices | Atlanta, Pittsburgh, New York, Miami |
| Service lines | Strategy led creative platforms and brand transformation; digital experience, engagement and applied AI; media, performance and decision intelligence. The footer also lists multicultural content |
| Named clients and partners | IHG, Massage Envy, Hannaford, Ad Council, Netflix, NBA, Five Guys, NFL. Featured work includes Five Guys, Frontdoor, Kidde and Netflix K-Content |
| Awards stated | Two time AdAge A-List winner; Campaign US Independent Agency of the Year, Silver; Adweek Midsize Agency of the Year finalist |
| Headcount, revenue, client count | None published |
| Prices | None published |
A client list of that shape tells you something a deck will not: the firm is used to brands with real review processes and national distribution. If you are a small regional business, that is a reason to ask where you would sit on the list and who would actually work on your account, which is the question that decides what you receive at any agency of this size.
The same criterion applied to a comparable independent
PMG, read on pmg.com on 21 October 2026, calls itself "a global independent platform company that unlocks potential" and publishes more numbers: "1,000+ Global Team Members", thirteen global hub offices with Dallas listed first, and claimed figures of 90 percent client retention and 90 percent employee retention. It names its own operating system, Alli, and publishes a long partner list including Google, TikTok, Amazon, Meta and The Trade Desk. It publishes no prices and shows a large logo wall including Apple, BMW Group, Nike, Ralph Lauren and Dutch Bros.
On the criterion of published, checkable detail, PMG is ahead: it states headcount, office count and two retention figures. Chemistry states awards and clients and no scale numbers at all. That is a difference in disclosure rather than in quality, and both are well regarded independents. Retention figures published by a firm about itself are the firm own claims, so the useful follow up is to ask how retention is defined and over what period.
Neither publishes a price, which is normal in this part of the market and is why we will not reproduce any rate card. What sets a tier at agencies of this kind is consistent: the seniority of the named team, the number of markets and languages in scope, and whether media buying sits inside the fee or beside it. Ask for all three in writing.
The two numbers neither firm publishes
The first is the fee split by discipline, which is the single most useful line in any full service proposal and almost never appears. Ask for it as percentages adding to one hundred.
The second is whether the five assistants name your business when a buyer asks who to buy from in your category. That one is not a failing on either firm part, because it is not a service either sells. It is measurable: a fixed set of buyer questions, your own name absent from every prompt so the answer is not primed, repeated runs because the same question returns different companies on different days, and naming and citation recorded as two separate numbers because they fail for different reasons. In our own corpus of 1,872 readings one firm was cited as a source in 65 readings and named in the answer text twice, which is why those two figures are never added.
That measurement is what we sell, and it is a layer beside an agency rather than an agency. On creative, media, brand and production, both firms above are ahead of us and we do not compete with either.
Questions about Chemistry and agencies like it
Is Chemistry an independent agency?
Its own site presents it as an independent, and its stated awards include an independent agency of the year placing from Campaign US. Independence matters mainly for who owns the media relationships and whether a holding company sibling is also pitching you.
Where is Chemistry based?
Its site lists Atlanta, Pittsburgh, New York and Miami. It does not label one of them as a headquarters on the page we read.
How do I compare two independents with no published prices?
Put both proposals on one page with identical rows: total fee, the split by discipline, the named people and their hours, who owns the accounts and assets, and the notice period. Most of the apparent difference between agency proposals is formatting.
Does a large client list mean they are right for me?
It means they can operate at that scale. Your position on the list decides what you get, so ask which named people work on your account and how many hours a week you are buying.
What should I ask about awards?
Which year, which category, and for which client. An award is evidence that one piece of work was admired, which is useful and is not the same as evidence about how the firm runs an account.