IMANZ hosts inaugural partner showcase
Last night the Independent Media Agencies New Zealand (IMANZ) members, foundation media partners and industry partners gathered together at the Maritime Room in Auckland to provide a window into the powerful collaboration options on offer between media partners and New Zealand’s dynamic indie agency sector.
In addition to attendees across IMANZ’ more than 30 member agencies, the event was supported by 18 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.
At the event, IMANZ also announced the appointment of indie agency legend and co-founder of MBM, Sean McCready, as executive mentor to the newly formed IMANZ leadership team.
This will see McCready working with and mentoring five senior leaders from the IMANZ membership to build and grow working groups that will support indie agencies by fostering a community of collaboration and sharing in areas such as training, compliance, technology, research, and networking.
Kath Mitchell, IMANZ general manager, says the event last night after less than a year of IMANZ being in operation is 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.
“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 partner showcase was the first of many, and as we head into year two IMANZ has a busy calendar with events, webinars and knowledge sharing opportunities lined up for members and partners.