A Conversation With Robin Bonn

Robin Bonn is the founder of Co:definery and author of the international bestseller Market of One. Over the past decade he has helped more than 150 agencies sharpen their positioning, escape commoditisation, and build businesses clients genuinely value. He joins Seth Hawthorne and Debbie Richardson with a contrarian diagnosis.

The problem, Robin argues, isn't that there are too many agencies — it's that too few are genuinely distinct. Under-differentiation, not oversupply, is what drives the race to the bottom on price. As AI reshapes pricing, talent, and confidence, "taste and judgement" are becoming the real strategic battleground — the things that can't be automated or copied.

The path out is the hard work most agencies avoid: moving beyond generic positioning to build a true market of one. It's a candid, optimistic conversation about strategic clarity, and why the future belongs to agencies willing to become genuinely different rather than marginally better.