Aotearoa’s dynamic indie agencies got together with media and industry partners at the Maritime Room in Auckland last night to promote collabs between media partners and Independent Media Agencies New Zealand members.
At the event, IMANZ also announced indie agency legend and co-founder of MBM Sean McCready had been appointed as Executive Mentor to the newly formed IMANZ Leadership Team.
McCready will mentor five senior leaders from IMANZ, with an eye to fostering a community of collaboration in areas such as training, compliance, technology, research, and networking.
People from IMANZ’s more than 30 member agencies were there, along with 18 foundation media partners and industry partners: LUMO, Allied Press, Mediaworks, MetService, Sky, Blis, Stuff, Go Media, StackAdapt, IAS, Meta, TVNZ, JCDecaux, NZME, TikTok, LinkedIn, oOh!media, and Warner Bros Discovery.
Energy and potential
Kath Mitchell, IMANZ General Manager, says the event was testament to the energy and potential of the indie sector.
“The fact that we launched in just June last year, and last night had an event with more than 30 member agencies, drawing the attention and support from most of New Zealand’s biggest media players and platforms tells you something about the scale of opportunity that exists in indie agencies collaborating,” she said this morning.
“The talent, creativity and ambition in this slice of the industry is huge and our partners clearly recognise that. And being able to announce our collaboration with Sean McCready, who has been on the indie journey in an incredibly successful way and has so much knowledge to give back to the industry – it’s a further demonstration of what happens when indies come together with a collaborative mindset.”
Mitchell says last night’s showcase was the first of many, and IMANZ has a busy calendar lined up for year two with events, webinars and knowledge sharing opportunities for members and partners.