The Independent Media Agencies of Australia (IMAA) launched its first major member event this week, Operation Bounceback.
The event was held in person and live-streamed from Sydney on April 5, and presented the association’s 120+ members, 40 media partners, and respective industry bodies to discuss the current state of the industry and the future of independent media agencies, and the broader media landscape across Australia.
Guest speakers spanned TV, radio, out-of-home, news media, regional media, cinema, and digital sectors. The event featured a TV panel, hosted by Think TV’s Kim Portrate, along with presentations from Boomtown chairman and SCA chief sales officer Brian Gallagher, IAB CEO Gai Le Roy, Val Morgan managing director Guy Burbidge, CRA CEO Joan Warner, Outdoor Media Association CEO Charmaine Moldrich, Ground Control Research director John Williams to discuss data in the industry, and ThinkNewsBrands general manager Vanessa Lyons.
Mediaweek caught up with the IMAA’s general manager Sam Buchanan about the success of the industry body’s first event, and what they now have planned for the future.
“I am just swimming in a sea of beautiful emails, it is lovely,” said Buchanan. “Everyone’s happy the partners, the industry bodies, the members, everyone is just feeling the love. We’ll do it every year, we’ll tweak it, and we’ll make it more of a kickoff session. Probably put it in February and kick off 2023 and give everyone the briefing of what they need to know for the next 12 months.
With the IMAA’s first event person starting next week, the event was organised by Buchanan and the organisation’s business manager Becky Coulson.
“We guerrilla warfared it and got help from where we needed help. By being to a lot of events, we see what works and what doesn’t work. I think for the first crack at it we did pretty well. Bec runs a pretty tight ship when it comes to organisation.”
Buchanan said that they don’t have the final attendance numbers yet, but he was happy with the outcome both from in-person attendance and people tuning in from the stream.
“Only maybe two dozen seats weren’t there from a 205 seat session. We also had a lot dialling in from all around the country. I’d imagine it would be potentially over 1000 from that.”
While it took over two years for Operation Bounceback due to the affects of the Covid-19 pandemic, Buchanan said that it won’t be that long between drinks for the next IMAA event.
“The next evolution of this is we’re diving down into each channel. And we’re working on what that looks like. The next event we’re working on will be with radio in May or June, and we will have a debate or a panel more probably in a bar or something like that with a stage and then thought leadership and education followed by drinks and networking.”
The event is one of the first ever globally to be carbon negative, by directly stopping big polluters, with Australian start-up C2Zero offsetting the entire event, eliminating three tonnes of carbon on behalf of the IMAA.
The IMAA Academy
Buchanan said that another major project from the IMAA will come to fruition this year, with the IMAA academy due to launch mid-year.
“We’ll do the one on one of media and then CRA will dive into radio, OMA will do outdoor those kinds of things. We’re really excited, it is going to be a major investment into training that next level of people coming through. It is going to be bigger than Ben-Hur. It will be rolled out to university students and their members and partners.
“We’re talking to a whole bunch of really amazing Australian businesses that can bring this to life, through a multi-media kind of way, there’ll be interaction or almost gamification, there’ll be video, there’ll be audio, there’ll be all sorts of things. We’re really excited about it. It should be helped with the government’s new plan.”
Charity Work
Another area on the hitlist for the IMAA for the rest of the year is to build up its charitable contributions, with Buchanan pointing to the group’s collaboration with Imparja as an example, with a larger announcement on the partnership due out soon.
“We are working with Imparja for our Make a Difference charity that we’re working on to help with reconciliation. We’re going to be helping First Nation people in Alice Springs. We’ve also got a charter that we’re asking our members to sign and they’re all jumping on to this.”
The IMAA international staff transfer program
With international borders beginning to open up again, one of the most exciting projects that Buchanan and the IMAA are due to release soon is the international staff transfer program which will allow local staff to gain international experience.
“It will allow our talent to go overseas and get exposure to other agencies. They can go pretty much anywhere they want to go in the world through thenetworkone. They’ll spend three weeks over there, we might get some people from there over to us, and then from there, they’ll come back with the world’s best practice for whatever the category is. The agencies will also have a bit of a connection and normally nine times out of 10, there are business opportunities to come out of it. We’re going to probably kick that off formally at the end of May.”