We relate an advertising agency's reputation for creativity to its ability to retain client loyalty. The data base consists of ten years of UK data on account switching trends and comprises 1,145 advertising accounts and 13 variables. The analysis identifies three agency creativity variables, three client organisation variables and three account‐specific variables as fundamental factors for explaining the switching behaviour of clients. “Creative” agencies are found to be more successful at retaining clients, individual accounts, and portfolios of acc