Perspectives - Strong communications and flexibility to deal with COVID-19

By Dominic Pearman | 15 December 2020
Dominic Pearman

This first appeared in the AdNews Annual 2020. Subscribe here to make sure you get your copy.

AdNews asked industry leaders their perspective on the year that was and the prospects for the road ahead:

Dominic Pearman, chairman, IMAA

Although 2020 has been a tragic year for all sorts of reasons, surprisingly it has been a successful launch year for the IMAA. We launched on 19 February 2020, just prior to the world shutting down. With 20 members and grand plans for a packed calendar year of conferences and meetings, no-one could have predicted what lay ahead. However, the support and positive feedback the IMAA has received from independent agencies, media vendors and the industry trade media has been remarkable.

When COVID-19 hit, the biggest challenge was the uncertainty of what would happen next.

Clients’ situations varied enormously from having no customers, to product distribution issues to selling out of product. This was very much category dependent, though half of all the IMAA members were facing six months of having at least 50% less business. Thankfully, independent agencies adapt far quicker than larger organisations and all of our members have maintained their businesses, with JobKeeper a massive help in managing our way through those six months.

Perhaps obvious, given we are in the communications business, but there is no doubt strong communications and flexibility were needed to deal with COVID-19. Communications with staff, clients and media vendors became crucial. Our members told us they were constantly talking to clients and arranging Zoom calls with WFH staff. Staff relationships seemed to be more open, as P&Ls were being shared freely and constant staff updates became the norm. Media vendors have also been
tremendously supportive and helpful with insights and research despite having their own COVID-19 issues.

Despite shelving the calendar of events, the IMAA managed to run educational member webinars, establish an alliance with the world’s largest independent agency association (thenetworkone.com), run an ARN radio campaign and surveyed our members. One of the best outcomes from the IMAA is that it enabled independent agencies to talk to one another and share issues. There is nothing better than discussing concerns with people in similar positions to yourself.

What does 2021 look like? For the IMAA, we hope to get our calendar of events back up, we will have a new leadership team and expect membership growth on top of the 50 members we now have from across the nation.

In terms of advertising expenditure, we expect 2021 to be up compared to 2020 but still down compared to 2019. We have also been told independent agency spend has increased  substantially during the years as clients appreciate the service, experience and consistency of staff that independents deliver. COVID-19 has changed employers’ attitudes to WFH so it is also reasonable to expect that to continue to some degree.

The support the IMAA has received, while launching in a once-in-a-business-lifetime pandemic, has been outstanding. As the independent space gains greater exposure, we expect 2021 to be the Year of The Independent.

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