Indies Rising: Building an Unfair Advantage for Marketers
Moonlight Studios · 1446 W. Kinzie Street, Chicago
Registration & Breakfast
Coffee, Burn Box cards, swipe cards at every seat.
Welcome & Opening Remarks
Featuring Arima, our title sponsor.
Articulating the Indie Advantage
Pitch teardowns, procurement interrogation, tag-in intel exchange.
Morning Break
Presented by Blood Sweat + Tears.
Myth Busters
Indie Tinder, CMO Confessions, live simulation.
Your Unfair Advantage
Anthony Reeves. Lunch + keynote.
What Marketers Really Want
Both sides of the table. Sentiment dial live.
Afternoon Break
Placing Their Bets
M&A + industry gambles. Presented by Pathlabs.
Protecting Your Work
IP, contracts, influencer deal landmines.
Show Off Happy Hour
12 agencies, 5 min each, drinks. Goodway Group.
Tap any session to expand the full breakdown.
Articulating the Indie Advantage
How to win when holding companies are still winning too. Three rapid-fire segments that put indie pitching under a microscope.
Quick Fire: Ghost of Pitches Past
A seasoned proxy dissects a real, anonymous sub-section of a losing pitch deck. Real-time feedback on what lost the room — from over-engineered strategy to missed cultural cues.
Poking Procurement
We interrogate the intermediaries who see every pitch. Procurement veterans share the specific advantages — and fatal flaws — they observe when indies challenge holding companies.
HoldCo to Indie Intelligence: Tap In, Tap Out
Five chairs on stage. Two “defectors” from holding companies unpack culture shocks and strides. Two chairs stay open for the audience to tag in with counter-tactics or intelligence.
- Is going above and beyond the brief seen as indie ambition, or a red flag?
- What is the one holdco habit that indies mimic that actually makes them look smaller?
- What’s the most exhausted agency-speak phrase in pitch decks right now?
- What was the first moment at an indie where you realized the work ethic was fundamentally different?
- What’s the most predictable move holdcos make in a pitch that an indie should exploit every time?
Burn Box Moment
This block wraps with a live reading of early Burn Box submissions.
Myth Busters
Testing the claims indie agencies make against real client experiences. Bring your swipe cards.
Indie Tinder: Swipe Left on Claims
10 anonymized indie value props flash on screen. Brand-side panelists swipe right or left in 5 seconds. Use your green/red cards to play along. Then we dig into where the disconnects are.
Creativity & Conflict
Has an agency ever been too honest? Have you hired an indie for vibes but wished they had holdco infrastructure? When does proactive partnership become over-eager validation-seeking?
Quick-Fire Simulation
One brand rep pitches a deliberately bad idea. One indie leader has 2 minutes to talk them out of it. Live. No prep. Pure instinct.
CMO Confessions
Three anonymous video vignettes. Each CMO shares one thing they admire about indies and one thing they struggle with.
Your Unfair Advantage
Anthony Reeves — 25 years at Amazon, Airbnb, LVMH, Verizon, Kohler. Author of Eat the Donkey. Introduced by Doug Zanger.
Core thesis: “Best practices produce the same results for everyone.” When every agency has the same AI, the same data, the same playbooks — capability stops being an advantage.
Anthony introduces The Foundation Theory: how to identify what makes your agency distinctive, why “full-service” is eroding it, what brand-side leaders look for when choosing between your shop and the holding company, and a framework for positioning that compounds — growth that reinforces who you are instead of diluting it.
What Marketers Really Want
Building relationships that last — from both sides of the table. A live sentiment dial tracks whether the room feels they’re meeting the bar or finding it impossible.
The Mechanics of Intimacy
What keeps pitch energy alive? Write a pre-nup for a brand/agency relationship. If you offered 50% at risk, would they trust you more or less? If you fired your agency tomorrow, how much of your brand’s soul walks out?
Sentiment Dial
Use the sentiment dial to signal whether you’re meeting what brands want or whether it feels impossible. When the gap gets wide, the moderator interrupts to dig deeper.
Temperature Check
Quick 4-question survey. What question would you ask a fellow indie? Which format stuck? Anything you never want to see again?
Where Brands & Agencies Are Placing Their Bets
The longest block — and for good reason. Two back-to-back panels on M&A, media, creative, and talent architecture.
Growth Strategy: What’s Now to What’s Next
The “buy or be bought” anatomy: cultural integration friction, signals of a deal gone sideways, and market shifts forcing leaders to double down or walk away.
Surveying Bluffs, Blunders + Focused Investments
Cutting through performative innovation. The true cost of vertical specialization, the reality of AI beyond the hype, and how indies outmaneuver holdcos through data and talent agility.
- If you had to put 50% of your personal net worth into one current bet, which one?
- Where is the real money in AI — lowering costs or increasing client value?
- Are creator divisions adding genuine value or acting as a more expensive middleman?
- What legacy service is your biggest revenue driver that you know you need to kill?
- When did cultural integration become the hardest part of M&A?
Protecting Your Work: More Treasure, Less Traps
Hidden costs in influencer budgets, real-world deals gone sideways, and an IP treasure hunt. Screen-and-clicker only — no devices needed.
Invisible Invoice
A sample $50K influencer budget with hidden costs revealed: whitelisting tax (+20-30%), SAG-AFTRA (+15-20%), shadow production ($3K-$7K), usage rights. Who eats these costs?
The Talent Trap
An anonymized deal that went sideways — violated exclusivity, morals clause, or six-figure usage dispute. Legal post-mortem follows. You play “what would you have done differently?”
IP Treasure Hunt
Tag what’s copyrightable, trademark-worthy, or already given away. If AI generated your pitch mood board, who owns the “Indie Advantage” now?
Everything you need to participate, in one place. Tap to open.
Burn Box
Physical card at registration. Write your worst pitch experience.
At RegistrationLive Polling
Vote and submit questions in real-time via Slido.
Tap to OpenChicago Trivia
Kicks off every block. Join from your phone when the code appears.
Tap to JoinIndie Tinder
Green/red cards at your seat for Block 2’s swipe segment.
At Your SeatSentiment Dial
Live during Block 3. Signal if you’re meeting the bar or not.
Tap to OpenTemperature Check
4-question survey at end of Block 3 via Slido.
Tap to OpenShow Off Deck Upload
Presenting? Submit your deck at least 1 day before. Keynote preferred, Google Slides backup.
Tap to UploadPresented by Goodway Group. No pitches. Pure creative celebration. 12 agencies, 5 minutes each, drinks flowing.
The Rules
Doug Zanger wraps at 7:00 PM with closing remarks bridging to Day 2: Own It — April 16th.
This page is for registered attendees of the IAN Leadership Summit.