IN:WA

🎄🎄🤶🎅🎁🎄🌲🎁🎅🎅🌲🌲🎁🎁🤶 Yesterday afternoon, the owners and leaders of independent, WA-owned agencies gathered together for the IN:WA celebration of Christmas and the year that has been 2024. Whether it has been a year of ups, downs, or a mixture of the two, our community is here to help members navigate challenges and reach objectives thanks to our culture of sharing, learning and representation. Our group this year was around three times the size of our gathering at the end of 2023. This is testament to the growth we have achieved in membership, and the engaged and invested individuals that contribute their time and insights to make this community fantastic and unique in the Western Australian creative and communications sector. With 36+ member agencies, we welcomed well over 60 individuals to The Stables Bar in the Perth CBD, and the positive energy in the room was palpable. Our thanks goes to the chair of our board, Jeff Champtaloup, and 2024 board members Ivona Gaspar, Mark Braddock, John Petkovic, Claire Aindow, Nanda Gunnink and Ben De Jonge. Without these good people, our roster of events, activations and member support initiates would not be possible. On behalf of IN:WA, our board, members and community, we thank all of you for helping us achieve a wonderful year in 2024, wish you all a Happy Christmas and a strong and positive start to the new year for our whole sector. If you are looking for a community of peers in the WA indie agency sector, come and join us in 2025. Our agency members now include Bonfire, Braincells, Block, Clarity Communications, Bang Digital Australia, The Cut, Likeable Creative, Anthologie, Slick Design Pty Ltd, Juicebox, Workhouse, Dux Digital, Ideology, Studio Orange, Beautiful Pictures, KIOSK Creative Services, Digital Hitmen, Hatchet, Distl, equ, Rhythm Films, Social Meteor , Start Digital, White Chalk Road, Dapth, The Marketing Room, Daisy Digital, Monday Media, Word of Mouth Agency, Humaan, Berlin, And/And and more

From the IN:WA board members to our incredible community of indie commercial communications agencies, THANK YOU! 2024 has been an amazing year of new members, events, sharing, learning and representation of our sector and the people and businesses that make it great. 2025 looks exciting for our members and the broader indie community in WA and we’re looking forward to the new year and our first events. Until then, we wish everyone Happy Holidays and an epic new year.

Our thanks to Campaign Brief for sharing the good news of a fantastic year of growth for IN:WA, celebrated last week with a Christmas Lunch, exceptionally well attended by the vast majority of our member cohort of 35 WA indie agencies. Please take a look and share the love! (You could even play a game of 'Spotto'!) Our thanks also to these wonderful WA independent commercial communications businesses that make up our membership community - braincells, Block, Clarity Communications, Bang Digital Australia, Likeable Creative, Anthologie, Bonfire, Humaan, Slick Design Pty Ltd, Juicebox, Workhouse, Dux Digital, Ideology, Studio Orange, Beautiful Pictures, KIOSK Creative Services, Digital Hitmen, Hatchet, Distl, equ, Rhythm Films, Social Meteor , Start Digital, White Chalk Road, Dapth, The Marketing Room, Daisy Digital , Monday Media, Word Of Mouth Agency, Berlin, And/And

Our Annual general Meeting (AGM) was held yesterday afternoon, with thanks to IN:WA members Joel Pember and Ivona Gaspar for hosting this important annual meeting at Juicebox. Moderated by Ivona, and board chair Jeff Champtaloup from braincells, the purpose of our AGM is to receive input from members, review the current year, and nominate the board for the coming year. Our thanks go to the members who attended from WA independent agencies including Likeable Creative, Hatchet, And/And, Word Of Mouth Agency, Clarity Communications, White Chalk Road, Dapth, Block, Studio Orange, and Workhouse. Our community are excited and grateful that the 2024 board all volunteered to continue their efforts in 2025, bolstered further by a new board member in Ryan Khong from Word Of Mouth Agency. Welcome to our board Ryan! 2024 has been a year of membership growth, strengthening our position and visibility in WA, and an expanding roster of learning and sharing events for the owners and leaders of independent agencies, their team members, and the broader communications sector in our beautiful city and state. We are looking forward to the new year with motivation, optimism and excitement. If your commercial communications business shares our positivity, you are invited to join our community in 2025.

The IN:WA board followed up our final Panel Event of the year with the November Board Meeting. Our board finish each year with the up-coming AGM, followed by a planning day to review the current year and workshop improvements and new ideas for the coming year. This board meeting focussed on: 📊 Treasurer’s report and IN:WA’s financial position 📈 Membership, after a year of fantastic growth and exceeded membership goals 🎓 IN:LEARNING pilot program, feedback and review 💬 Panel Event feedback and review 📣 Representation pillar updates and next steps 🤝 2024 Annual General Meeting 🌏 AIA partnership opportunities 💡 Board Member planning workshop 🎄 Owners and Leader’s Christmas lunch On behalf of our members and community, we extend our thanks to the IN:WA board for contributing their time, experience, expertise and passion for our sector. IN:WA and our events and initiatives would not be possible with out the hard work of board chair Jeff Champtaloup from braincells, and board members Ivona Gaspar from Juicebox, Mark Braddock from Block, Claire Aindow from equ, Ben De Jonge from Dapth, John Petkovic from Workhouse and Nanda Gunnink from Studio Orange.

Take a look at our own 'wrap article' on last week's Panel Event on the fiesty topic of Creative Vs Commercial. What a wonderful way to wrap up our community events for 2024. It's been a BIG year here at IN:WA. Thank YOU for your support, engagement and contributions, we're looking forward to 2025! Read More Here - https://shorturl.at/mYzxS

We're grateful to have passionate creative individuals like Mark Braddock and his team at Block as members. We support the ongoing push to increase the importance and visibility of creativity, in all of its forms, in our wonderful city and state.

PANEL EVENT. Creative Vs Commercial. Post 4 of 4. Last night, we hosted a cage fight between the creatives and the commercially minded… No, we didn't really. What this topic did surface with our community of indie agency owners and leaders is that, for the most part, creative and commercial are two parts of the same objective - To help businesses and brands grow, via communications, engagement, messaging and meaning. Without a positive commercial impact, the creative output is not doing its job. During last night’s open discussion, anchored by an awesome panel of three, the group took on questions including: ❓What is a creative anyway? 💬 Is ‘creativity’ really versus ‘commercial’? ❓ Does AI threaten creativity? 💬 How do we communicate the value of creative? ❓ What does creativity mean in 2024/25? 💬 What would the word look like without creativity? Our thanks go out to the members and guests who made our final panel event of 2024 a SELL OUT! It was wonderful to see the IN:WA community out and activated in full force! Our magical moderator, Jennifer McMahon of Modern People Global, did an exceptional job of guiding the discussion, anchored by our three ‘official’ panelists. Thank you to: Scott O'Hehir, Director & Co-founder, Checkside Claire Aindow, CEO of equ Dean Hunt, Founding Creative Partner, Chapter Brand Leadership IN:WA are welcoming new members now, and in 2025, so come and join WA’s greatest agency community, including - Bonfire, braincells, Dapth, Likeable Creative, Anthologie, Block, Clarity Communications, Rhythm Films, Juicebox, Workhouse, Dux Digital, Ideology, Humaan, Berlin, Bang Digital Australia, Slick Design Pty Ltd, Studio Orange, Beautiful Pictures, KIOSK Creative Services, Digital Hitmen, Hatchet, Distl, equ, Rhythm - The Agency, Social Meteor , Start Digital, White Chalk Road, The Marketing Room, Daisy Digital, Monday Media, Word of Mouth Agency, And/And

PANEL EVENT. Creative Vs Commercial. Post 3 of 4. With our final panel event of 2024 delivered to a full house of highly engaged IN:WA members and guests, our board are looking towards 2025 to continue building on our growth and initiatives in the new year. Thanks to Jennifer McMahon, our go-to moderator, our panel events are defined by a ‘Fishbowl’ format. What that means is when any audience member wants to comment or contribute, they are invited to stand and join the panel. This encourages engagement, sharing and interaction from the whole group. And that facilitates sharing and learning on a much larger scale than a static panel format. We love events in the fishbowl, because this format leans heavily into our pillars of Sharing and Learning. Just as important is the ‘official’ panel, that anchors the conversation, with professionals hand picked to contribute with maximum value to the topic. Thank you to Claire Aindow from equ, Dean Hunt from Chapter Brand Leadership and Scott O'Hehir from Checkside. Last night’s event finished our panel events for the year in the strongest possible way, with many of our member agencies represented, and complemented by plenty of guests, all warmly welcomed by our community of indie agency owners and leaders. Thank you to all of these communications and creative professionals for being there, bringing and sharing your ideas and adding to the energy in the room - Gemma Rule, Daniel Gouvignon, Mike Drysdale, Tara Lyle, Malcolm MacLean, Daniel Agostino, Pete Sampson, Mark Braddock, Jeff Champtaloup, Ben De Jonge, Kelly-Anne Davis, Paul Dean, Ivona Gaspar, Justin Greenwood, Nanda Gunnink, Alex Hamilton, Anthony Hasluck, Adam Rule, John Petkovic, Amy Sutton, George Vasiliou and many more. If you like the look of our community, come and join us, with member agencies, including - Bonfire, braincells, Dapth, Likeable Creative, Anthologie, Block, Clarity Communications, Rhythm Films, Juicebox, Workhouse, Dux Digital, Ideology, Humaan, Berlin, Bang Digital Australia, Slick Design Pty Ltd, Studio Orange, Beautiful Pictures, KIOSK Creative Services, Digital Hitmen, Hatchet, Distl, equ, Social Meteor , Start Digital, White Chalk Road, The Marketing Room, Daisy Digital, Monday Media, Word of Mouth Agency, And/And and more...

PANEL EVENT. Creative Vs Commercial. Post 2 of 4. As you can see from the photos, there were plenty of agencies, individuals, ideas and energy generated during our final panel event of 2024, held last night, at Lawson Flats. Skilfully moderated by Jennifer McMahon of Modern People Global, with a 3-person panel, and plenty of engagement and contributions form the crowd, topics covered included: ✅ Defining creativity in 2024 ☑️ Is everyone ‘creative’? ✅ Generalists vs specialists ☑️ The commercial value of creativity ✅ AI’s role in creative development ☑️ ‘Selling’ creative concepts to clients It was wonderful to see so many of our member agencies in the room, joined by many guests experiencing an IN:WA event for the first time. Thank you to these agencies for supporting last night’s event - braincells, Block, Clarity Communications, Likeable Creative, Anthologie, Slick Design Pty Ltd, Juicebox, Workhouse, Dux Digital, Studio Orange, Hatchet, equ, White Chalk Road, Dapth, The Marketing Room, Monday Media and many others These agencies were represented by the Owner sand Leaders of our member agencies, including Claire Aindow, Mark Braddock, Jeff Champtaloup, Ben De Jonge, Kelly-Anne Davis, Paul Dean, Ivona Gaspar, Justin Greenwood, Daniel Gouvignon, Nanda Gunnink, Alex Hamilton, Anthony Hasluck, ara Lyle, Malcolm MacLean, Adam Rule, John Petkovic, Amy Sutton, George Vasiliou and many more. The IN:WA board is already looking forward to 2025 and continuing to build our membership, and our voice, and building on our events and initiatives to help WA’s independent communication agencies.