When the Client Wins, They Win. Three tests for an agency whose fate is bound to its client's.
Most agency rankings count awards or revenue. Neither tells you whether an agency wins only when its client does. Three tests do: a client-credited result, a relationship that survived a real test, and a fee that moves with the client's outcome. The third is almost never public.
In 2018, Shiner Beer put its creative account into review. It had been with the Austin agency McGarrah Jessee for about fifteen years, and on the way out the brewer's marketing director said on the record that the agency had overseen the period with the largest sustained growth in Shiner's history, and that the two were parting on very good terms.
If you run an agency, sit with that for a moment. The work had done what work is supposed to do. The client said so, publicly. The account left anyway.
Most owners believe good work is what protects an account, and every agency ranking reinforces the belief, because rankings count awards, revenue or noise. None of that says whether an agency and its client actually win together: whether, when the client's business grows, the agency helped grow it, and when the client struggles, the agency is in it with them.
That reciprocity is what separates a partner from a supplier, and it can be tested. Three questions do most of the work. The public record offers clear Texas examples of the first two, and the Shiner story, which did not end in 2018, is one of them. The third is almost never visible, which is itself a finding.
Not an award; a result. Shiner's exit statement is the example. A client crediting growth to an agency on the way out is rarer than one doing it on the way in, and it is the one kind of evidence no agency can write for itself.
A new chief marketer, a formal review, a recession, an acquisition. Vendors get cut in those moments; partners get kept.
Houston's Lopez Negrete Communications began working with Walmart in 1995. When Walmart ran a broad agency review starting in 2005, it replaced all of its general-market agencies. Lopez Negrete kept the business, and Ad Age reported in 2012 that about 80 of the agency's 200 staff worked on it.
And Shiner is the other side of the same test. In January 2026, after seven years with other agencies, the brewer brought its creative account back to McGarrah Jessee. Its brand director said it wanted a partner who understood the brand, and credited the agency's commitment and perseverance.
How long Shiner Beer worked with other agencies before returning its creative account, in January 2026, to the agency that had held it from 2003 to 2018. A client that leaves and comes back is about as clear a public signal of shared fate as the record offers.
Results-linked fees, a public commitment, walking away from safe billing to protect a client's result. This is the strongest signal of all, and the original index could not find a single Texas independent with public evidence of it. That does not mean it does not happen. It means agencies and clients do not publish it, and so the market cannot see the one thing that would most clearly separate a partner from a supplier.
| Test | What passing looks like | What does not count |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Client-credited result | A client, on the record, ties business growth to your work | Awards, case-study claims you wrote yourself |
| 2. Survived a named test | Kept through a new CMO, a review, a downturn, or rehired after leaving | Long tenure with no test in it |
| 3. Shared risk | Fees or commitments that rise and fall with the client's result | Performance language in a proposal with no money attached |
The three tests are from the ABC Index methodology, August 2026. Awards were excluded from the index by design: they show an agency is talented, not that its fate is tied to its client's.
Longevity alone is not the point. Many relationships last because nobody has tested them. What the two cases share is that each was tested, publicly, and held, or broke and was mended. That is the difference between a client who stays and a client who chooses you again.
The best evidence is usually private. A revenue lift or a retention save is known to the agency and the client and rarely published in a form anyone can check. Public examples are the visible fraction, and many strong agencies are absent from the record for that reason alone.
Public statements are selected. Clients praise agencies in announcements and exit statements; they rarely publish criticism. A credited result is strong evidence, not proof.
Relationships change. McGarrah Jessee's creative relationship with Whataburger went into review in September 2025; its outcome was not public in the sources read for this piece. Any example can be overtaken by events, and the examples here are dated.
This is not a ranking. The original index sorted agencies into tiers. That has been retired; a list nobody maintains goes stale and turns into a claim no one is checking.
- A client would say, on the record, that their business grew because of your work — not that they liked it; that it grew.
- Your largest account has survived a change of marketing leadership — and you kept it because of the work, not the contract.
- A client that left you has asked you back — or you have stayed close enough that they could.
- Some part of your fee moves with the client's result — even a small part, agreed in writing.
- You know which of your clients would pass test one today — and which would not, and why.
Ask your longest-standing client for one sentence you could publish: what changed in their business because of your work.
Ask in person or on a call, not by form. Frame it as a question about their business, not a testimonial request: what is different in the numbers, the team or the market because of what you did together? Offer to draft it from what they say and let them edit it. If they cannot name a result, that is the more valuable answer, and the start of a different conversation.
- What it costs
- One conversation and some nerve. The client may decline to be quoted, or may not be able to name a result, which is uncomfortable to hear from your longest relationship.
- How you'll know
- Within a month: either a sentence you can publish, with the client's approval, that names a business result, or a clear answer that they cannot yet. Either way you know which side of test one your best relationship is on.
The question was never who does the best work. It is who wins only when the client wins, and whether anyone outside the relationship can see it.
Related from Sound Decisions: You Don’t Need More Clients. You Need Longer Ones. · You Can Refuse the RFP and Still Win Clients · Your Best Clients Are the Ones You Undercharged
One conversation. Your longest-standing client.
Not a testimonial campaign. A read on which of the three tests that relationship would pass today, and what it would take to pass the next one.
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