About Indie Agency News

Indie Agency News (IAN) supports the independent agency world through news, content, learning and, critically, a community built into the platform (think Fishbowl meets LinkedIn, but for indies).

Our brief is simple: Build the global home for independent agencies.

The mission? Serve independent agencies and the brilliant people behind them.

It’s probably best to explain this via FAQs, so here it goes.

Cool. I dig it. And the brief and mission make sense. But is there anything else?

Yep. We have maxims that help us stay focused:

Service first. Service second. Service always.
Play offense for indies at all times to raise their visibility, especially with brands and marketers.
Start with human, and the rest takes care of itself.
Make it fun. Always.
The indie agency community decides.
We are in the business of developing personal, professional and industry growth.
Support the trades and the talented people there.
Ignore the rules because there are none.
The work we do makes a difference for someone.
Give brands and marketers good reasons to look this way.

Why did you start this?

We saw an opportunity to serve the industry, including the hard-working journalists who cover agencies. That’s right. We’ll always give credit and collaborate whenever possible.

The big thing is that we want to raise up indies and have some fun along the way. That’s why this is a platform to bring everyone together to thrive.

What’s the content? And how do we pitch you?

We do everything via this pitch form. Let’s start there.

This may be a little different than what you’re used to, but it helps us:

Keep things very organized (there are two of us running this thing, and a parade of emails is a big uff da)
Make quicker decisions on pitches
Develop better processes for you

Our main content franchises include:

Meet an Indie Agency
- A weekly focus on an independent agencies telling their stories and why brands should work with them (see example here)
#indiework Live
- Digging into some of the great work coming from indies in a fun livestream format (see example here)
#indiethinking
- Livestreams on current industry issues through the indie lens (see example here)
- Op-eds done live to show the unique passion and smarts of indie agency people (see example here)
The 10-Year Client
- This is a new, upcoming livestream series that brings brands and agencies together to demonstrate what real partnership looks like.
Fun + Games
- We’re creating a playground where indie agency talent can stretch out, get a little creative oxygen and have some fun.
Indie Agency News Radio
- We’re working on building a live, interactive audio component. That will likely see the light of day in early 2024.

A massively important part of IAN is the social platform built into the desktop version of the site. Get off of Fishbowl. Create, interact with and follow public or private groups on a range of industry topics crucial to indies.

Connect with other members and build meaningful relationships and connections.

You were an editor at Adweek and The Drum—and you’re pals with many of these trade pub folks. Won’t this put a burr in their saddles?

Ah, you asked about the elephant in the room: being a competitor. Glad you did.

On one level, yes. On another, not really. We will support the indie (jargon word coming up!) ecosystem, including other publications. This is about super-serving an essential part of the industry—and one that we love.

Here’s a very specific example:

Let’s say that you pitch us something that we think is juicy. We may say, “you really should pitch this to bigger pubs.” When you’re a corporate member, it’s something that we can help advise you on. Specifically, we can do a mini-consult to get your pitch tighter.

Whether it lands on our pages first or not, we want you to succeed.

There are additional consulting services available, but this is another way we serve members.

So, you’re working with the trades?

“Collaborating” is a better term. We’re allies of the trades, and plan on highlighting indie agency stories that land in other publications. And we plan to give the hard-working journalists the full credit they deserve (and we hope you’re supporting them with subscriptions).

I see a lot of the word “livestreaming” here

Yep. Think of us as more of a broadcast model. We’ll do plenty of writing, but the majority is via live media.

Awards?

Yep. We’re doing one award a month, and all nominations are open all year—which means that you can plan ahead.

We’ve also purposely made the Indie Agency News Honors entry process MUCH easier.

Our goal is to make recognition fun.

Live events?

Events are on the way. And we’ll add things as the community grows.

What’s the membership model?

Our goal is to be overwhelmingly majority member-led, allowing us to create and serve the audience.

Individual memberships start at $10 per month and agency packages vary by size. Everyone at the agency gets a login, which is a pretty decent deal once you break the numbers down.

Take a peek at what that looks like here.

Sponsorships?

Yep. But we’re not going to do typical stuff. Any advertising on the platform must serve the business and growth goals of members and the indie agency community.

How do we get in touch?

Hit us up