Felt that I should say or tuppence worth on the news that i-Level have gone into administration, leaving so many jobs hanging in the balance. I first came across i-Level in the late 1990s when as creative director at Profero I was responsible for the online campaign creative for BT’s many departments prior to the creation of Openworld. Like Profero, i-Level were a fledgling company constantly breaking new ground in a somewhat naive and clumsy industry known as “new media”, where anything was possible but not always advisable. As i-Level were planning and buying the digital media for BT at the time (despite our best efforts to be doing it ourselves!) I was fortunate to be involved in fairly strategic meetings. To i-Level’s credit it was probably largely down to their initiative that creative, media and client should be talking from the start. Doesn’t sound like rocket science but at the time common-sense was rarely a given. It’s fair to say that at this time, they were the agency that everyone was looking to and they maintained that standard consistently for as long as I was regularly dealing with them. i-Level directors such as Charlie Dobres and Ed Ling at industry events, and their regular features and articles, consistently maintained a momentum of dynamism that helped keep the industry on a pulsing track. In recent years of avidly scanning through the NMA Top 100s it has been strangely comforting to see some of those original trailblazers, such as Profero, Glue and i-Level still there holding their own. It’s taken a long time in a fast-moving and still relatively young industry to reach the relative level of sophistication we have now. But a lot of this is to the credit of a few agencies and key people whose influence was constant and i-Level was, in my opinion, right at the forefront for a long time. I wish everyone at i-Level who currently face uncertainty the best of luck. Dave