I first wrote an article extolling the virtues of independent agency networks and why independent agencies should join one back in August 2022.

It’s always interesting to look back on what you wrote; does it still make sense and what has changed?

For sure, the world has changed, our industry has changed, in fact just about everything has changed and in a very short period of time.

Change is not all doom and gloom, it can be very positive.

Today, I believe the role of independent agencies is vital in providing balance in an ever-changing marketplace and I would argue that independent agencies, and therefore independent networks, are even more relevant today for the new world that we live and work in. 

Independent agencies, by their very nature tend to be a single agency in a city; sometimes they may have a couple of offices, but essentially, they are smaller rather than larger. That brings with it advantages and disadvantages.

Yes, you are in charge of your own destiny, but it can be a bit lonely being an independent agency and as we have seen, our industry is changing and the competitive threat is growing all the time.

Thinking about the role of independent agency networks, at Tribe we exist to empower our independent agencies and businesses. We are here to inspire them and connect them.

We want to be at the leading edge of what’s happening in our industry and be able to provide our agencies and businesses with intelligence and insights.

Our name gives it away – we are a Tribe so we work together because we want to, not because we have to. This spirit and energy serves us well. Because we are a Membership organisation, we listen to what our people want to talk about which allows us to deliver value-add and at the same time build our competitive advantage based on knowledge sharing and experiences.

When I look back at the topics that we have covered over the last couple of years, I see them as a ‘toolbox’ that Tribe people can dive into to drive their agency or business forward.

We have had some fantastic presentations and webinars over the last couple of years. 

We have talked about the importance of storytelling, NFT’s, AI (of course!) and one of my favourite topics – the death of scale. To support the leadership of agencies, we have covered becoming a B Corp, well-being, diversity and the 4 day working week.

We shall also shortly be launching the findings from a series of workshops that we ran at our global meeting in New York last October. Here we discussed the effect on our industry and the Tribe of four different future scenarios including the ongoing impact of technology and what creativity might look like in the future.

At our New York meeting we were also lucky enough to have Michael Farmer come and join us and talk about why he thinks the time is now for independent agency networks and agencies. Worth checking out more here .

Tribe Global is ‘always on’ as we look to empower, inspire and connect our independent agencies and businesses. By doing this we help deliver real value to all our Tribe people around the world and give them an unfair business advantage.

Tribe Global is growing.  We are heading towards 50 independent agencies and businesses, with more than 100 offices and almost 4000 Tribe people around the world.

If you are interested in joining the Tribe, would like to be a sponsor of one of our meetings or would like to speak at an event, please mail me at i.wright@wearetribeglobal.com

- Ian Wright | Managing Director, Tribe Global