Membership survey results.Presented: IDN Spring Conference May 2015

Interdirect Network and the future.

The IDN has achieved significant success for its members over the years. But now we need to look to the future…

• It is imperative that the network doesn’t rest on its laurels as many factors are now coming to play to impact the traditional agency model.

• After almost 30 years, globalization, technology and consumer sophistication – among many things - have all made major contributions to change the nature of much of what we do.

SINCE 1988, IDN HAS GROWN TO…• represent over 30

independent best-in-class direct and digital agencies from countries across the globe.

• Employing over 1,750 staff

• And driving revenues of over US$275m

BUT TIMES ARE CHANGING! WE NEED TO STAY RELEVANT.

To ensure the IDN and Member Agencies continue to survive and thrive into the future, the Network needs to reassess its value proposition, strategy and support structure.

OBJECTIVE & DESIRED OUTCOMES.The member questionnaire was pulled together to inform the development of the IDN strategy.

It aimed to provide a better understanding of the changing needs, attitudes and opinions of our Member Agencies through:

• Insights into the attitudes and opinions of the Member Agencies towards the current Network offering

• A deeper understanding of how the Members see the Network’s role in the ongoing success of their agencies

• Ideas that will inform the development of a strategy to better meet Members and Clients needs.

Topline response.19 Agency heads (mainly founding partners or directors) responded to the survey from around the world, providing some excellent insights to inform our future. 100% of them would recommend the network!

Response by Region

Response by IDN Tenure

Network event attendance. 15 of the respondents have attended at least ONE event in the last year. Only TWO agencies have never attended an event, and both are new to the network.

Number of Agencies Attending IDN Events vs Respondent Attending Personally (right column)

Q. Which of the following InterDirect Network events has a representative(s) of your agency attended?

Q. Which of the following InterDirect Network events have you attended personally?

Awards participation.

The majority of agencies have entered the IDN Awards, but clearly a fair proportion are not overtly inspired to enter regularly.

Q. Has your agency entered InterDirect Awards?

Pandora.

Most agencies state they have submitted work to Pandora, with 40% doing so in 2014.

Q. Has your agency submitted papers, presentations or case studies to Pandora?

Cross-boarder clients.

Over half of the respondents have Clients shared with other network agencies, with 72% of those being European agencies.

Q. Do you have, or have you ever had a client that works with other InterDirect Network agencies?

“It was great to have a setup that felt reliable. Reliable in that sense that we know each other personally since we meet twice

a year (at least). Not many network agencies can say that!”

“having partners in these countries gives us a certain insight of the markets and makes it easier to close-up

the proposals to the clients.”

Cross-boarder clients.

Only a quarter of agencies believe they have won business as a direct result of the network.

Q. Have you acquired any clients, that you know of, as a direct result of your InterDirect Membership?

“Pieter personally participated in the introductory meeting with the client

and made a very big difference.”

Q. Have you acquired any clients, that you know of, as an indirect result of your InterDirect Membership?In this case, 37% answered in the affirmative! Most mentioned the relationship aiding their sales pitch.

Cross-boarder clients.

Almost 2 out of 3 agencies have collaborated to bring a pitch or proposal to life.

Q. Have you ever partnered with another Member Agency for a cross-boarder client pitch or proposal?

“With the Danish. They know data mining. We know strategic creative communication.”

Network resources used.Q. Which of the following InterDirect Network resources have you used in the past to inform a recommendation, proposal, internal agency solution or in any other way?

Main reasons for membership.Q. What are the main reasons for your membership of InterDirect Network? (Rate top 3)

“Plus the opportunity to broaden the horizons and experiences of Agency

employees”

For most members, it’s sharing knowledge with like-minded people in a non-competitive environment.

What we really value in membership.Q. Please briefly describe in your own words the value you see in membership of InterDirect Network?

“networking with colleagues from foreign countries; quick

and uncomplicated knowledge exchange; access to Pandora

database; highly inspiring creative events ” “The opportunity to learn

from other agency industry leaders in an open forum,

non-competitive environment.”

“Meeting up with people who also own their agencies,

and discuss al kind of challenges and possibilities.”

“It has been a tremendous experience meeting wonderful

professional people from so many countries,

understanding their markets, their culture, way of doing

business...”

“IDN is very good for enhancing our credibility, but most of all it's a

great network for meeting likeminded individuals who you

can share knowledge and experience with. A network for colleagues - not competitors.”

Access to a group of like minded agency heads globally to help us stay ahead of the

curve with strategic leadership and agency best practice.

The IDN Membership experience.Q. How would you rate the following InterDirect Network resources and services based on your experiences? (Where 1 is poorest and 7 is exceptional)?

The standout for most people is the quality and value of the member forums and events.

There are opportunities to improve the way we communicate through Social Media, and PR/Support materials have also been highlighted as an area that could improve.

The IDN Membership experience.Q. What would you highlight as the top three things the InterDirect Network currently does really well or you find most beneficial?

FIRST >

SECOND >

THIRD >

For 50% of respondents, the network events are the key benefit (10 respondents). Other features were an international presence (2), and the people (4).

Knowledge-sharing features strongly (8 respondents), along with Awards (4).

“Every event is an intense and long-lasting inspiration

for the participants. Much more than

only a professional get-together - real

journey into the culture and sense of life of the agencies

country” Joint pitches, international client opportunities, knowledge sharing, Pandora and Awards all came through.

Focus for improvements to idn.Q. What would you highlight as the top three things the InterDirect Network should focus on improving to add value and improve the support it provides Member Agencies and existing or potential network clients?

“Making it meaningful to employees”

“Joint pitches” “Better information flow - conference calls, online sessions and other interactions between our annual events.”

Currently IDN has in our view insufficient structure to support joint pitching. Information exchange is unstructured and doesn't guarantee the best joint preparation for multiple partners; much is left to informal contacts.

The benefits of IDN are confined to a few leaders in the Agency. This may be because we are more distant and thus unable to take many employees to meetings in EU. Those who have attended have described it as the best experience of their career. Perhaps the IDN should increase its social media efforts and so engage more Agency employees.

IDN with its extensive experience and knowledge should be closer to each of us in our everyday routine, not only during the 2 annual events

“Forums and Events”Can be improved even more to ensure better relevance for all attendees

“Global International Team”“Very difficult to steal globally aligned clients to international agencies (networks)”“To be able to offer more and/or more outstanding solutions with limited recourses”

“More Case studies.”

“Newsletter in which members share the kind of work they're doing.”

“Make Pandora more graphic.”

“Provide speakers to local seminars”

“Visibility and credibility with international media” Provides a reference point to give credibility to IDN. 

We have found a good collaboration with the Danish since we complement each other. It might be easier to start a great collaboration if the agencies NOT have the exact or similar working skills. A client may feel ok with costs for one agency that does the creative work and another one doing the analytic part more than having to pay more for "only" creative work. If I turn the thought around again: the marketing budget will still be the same. Our agencies would earn less if we needed to take it out of the same budget. Maybe we could have an map over our agencies´ different skills. A formulae with different skills and how we rank ourselves would be interesting maybe! And a match maker... hm! :-)

Q. What would you highlight as the top three things the InterDirect Network should focus on improving to add value and improve the support it provides Member Agencies and existing or potential network clients?

“Agency visits with staff or clients”

“Branding”“Quality of social presence and content marketing”

The stronger the appearance of the network, the greater the credibility of the members..

Gives value added to our creative product and daily business.

Content marketing is a way for us to dramatically improve the credibility and visibility of IDN both locally and internationally

“Excellence especially digital/social media”Fast changing field – it’s difficult and takes much effort to stay up-to-date (it’s easier for big agencies and media-agencies)

“Online conferences”Since members can't always afford the cost and time to get together.

“International match making”

“Joint pitching to common clients ”

Focus for improvements to idn.

Q. What would you highlight as the top three things the InterDirect Network should focus on improving to add value and improve the support it provides Member Agencies and existing or potential network clients?

“Global pitch coordination”

“Finders fee?”Many members through the years have mentioned that international business is one important reason for joining the network. If we want that to happen more maybe we could suggest a finders fee for persons working to find clients for agencies between nations? Maybe someone with many great international contacts would like to do that then? 10% yearly for 2 years?

We should brainstorm ways to go after bigger accounts as a group.

“Keep doing what the network does”Because what we do now is valuable.

“The quality of support materials and the awards”This would improve the value of the support we have and help us with local PR.

Improve the usability of Pandora and "force" us members to upload more cases. The more information available, greater the value.

“Pandora” 

More structured knowledge exchange ("IDN Academy")Knowledge sharing is, or should be, one of the pillars under the IDN. It should be made more tangible and less informal. This would also help IDN to get more publicity and awareness

“legal staff or info from the markets, trends”

Better market presence - e.g. IDN-branded greetings (X-mas, NY, other holidays), cutting-edge presentation materials to include in our pitches (video presentation could be very helpful)

“To improve easy information sharing.”

Focus for improvements to idn.

Q. What other ideas would you like to see put in place or considered for the future evolution of InterDirect Network?

“Common project within EU countries , information of data protection law on EU level.”

Other ideas for consideration.

“Joint pitch structure "IDN Academy" themed conferences”

“Seeing how we can help our member agencies to survive downturns and be more relevant in their markets in the future.”

“Increase the PR/awareness of the IDN within member countries; fund the IDN using levy fees from members who get new business because of the network”

We would like IDN to Start pitching for Global accounts, and we are available to works for this to happen

Offer short periods of employees exchanges in another member's agency. Maybe even finance grants? 

“Move on from old-fashioned "direct-mailing and database"-approach towards digital/social-media approach.”

Webinars, or same SMM activity

“How to change as an agency”

Q. How do you promote your IDN membership in your local market?

how members promote idn locally.

“I describe the network in every agency

presentation. I show a map over where our

agencies are. A mention how different our

agencies are, form very big companies with 360 communication offering to very specialized ones.

And how great that is that we meet twice a

year. ” 

Most agencies include network membership references on their agency website, promotional materials and RFP responses.

Others mentioned PR, signage, word-of-mouth and through the use of IDN logos on agency materials.

Q. Do you think IDN is a competitive distinction over other international networks?

THE NEWork’s Competitive advantage.

“As compared to JWT or Ogilvy, which have deep insights and tons of work to showcase, no.” 

“Yes, due to its independent members.”

“Yes in a way. When I talk about IDN with friends who work on agencies in big communication networks such as IPG, TBWA, DDB and so on, they always say: "That sounds really unique, We never meet in that way in our network. We only write reports."

10 state they believe it has advantages, but feedback is mixed, and more focused on the people and non-competitive environment rather than influence on new business.

Interdirect Reputation. • Most respondents knew of other networks, and

referred to the large international agency networks like JWT and Saatchi & Saatchi.

• In terms of whether respondents thought the IDN has a competitive edge over other networks, there was a divide of opinion but an acknowledgement that it is slightly different from other networks in the way it conducts itself, which members prefer

• When asked how members found out about the IDN, the overriding response was either through word of mouth, experience or directly from the IDN (Pieter :-))

• Overall, members felt that if they left the IDN, it would be the great friendships they have developed that would be lost above all else.

“Being part of a wonderful family. ” 

“Lots of things. I would lose friends, great meetings but also access to an

international database of cases,

how tos etc.” 

So, how do we make

the IDN fly for the

benefit of all of us?