WAMA closes 2025 with wonderful, chaotic, ‘Great Debate’

Early morning Friday last week, 300 marketers gathered at Frasers for WAMA’s second ever Great Debate. WAMA Secretary Ashley Broadway reports on the event here.

The topic was tricky, positing – is the traditional agency model…dead?

On the affirmative, we had Captain Hayley Boneham, and her team Georgie Frampton and Luke O’Sullivan. For the negative, we had Captain Liam Loan-Lack, and his team Tim Newton and Anne Gribble.

The host was me, (this is weird) (I know), who plugged the full moon and did what I could to wrangle a bunch of people who are way more senior than I am.

Key highlights include but are not limited to:
1. Liam scaring the bejesus out of the opposing team by disclosing with a wolfish grin that he had “some” debate experience because he used to be a lawyer.
2. Hayley doing a literal mic drop at the end of her closing statement, but only a tiny one because she didn’t want to break the mic.
3. Luke comparing traditional agencies to giant cruise ships (cumbersome and bad).
4. Georgie closing the loop by comparing independent agencies to jet skis (cool and good).
5. Anne printing out 176 sheets of paper to use as visual aids for agency models.
6. Tim delivering a very cool, very creative, very original eulogy.
7. Hayley doing the exact same thing.

In all seriousness the debaters were faultless – they were prepared, sharp and witty and kept the entire room on tenterhooks throughout.

The winner, by a mere five votes, was the negative team, who managed to convince us that the traditional agency model does indeed deliver real value to clients and is very much alive and well.

Rene LeMerle, WAMA Chairperson, had this to say after the event: “The gloves came off, egos were tested, and plenty of laughs were had. In the end, it was less about declaring a winner and more about sparking the kind of debate that makes our industry tick.”

And that’s it for the year folks. If you came thanks for coming, if you didn’t no shade – but consider it next time because it’s a good time.

We’ll be back in your inbox at the start of 2026, droning on about how it’s another year, how time flies etc etc but most importantly, announcing our first event for the year.

Keep your eyes peeled, your towels unfurled and your hats on this summer.