End of an era as the IDM mourns Professor Derek Holder

Sad news this week of the passing of Professor Derek Holder, founder, MD and the driving force behind the Institute of Direct Marketing (IDM).

The importance of the IDM in the UK over the last 30 years can’t really be overstated – it helped formalise and enable the profound shift in marketing that took place in the 1980s, embracing the then revolutionary ‘direct’ techniques. The institute has subsequently trained a generation of marketers, and enabled the industry to reinvent itself for a new age, with consequent significant benefits for the economy at large. And by creating the IDM, and leading its development over the next 30 years, Professor Holder must be recognised as a primary architect of this change.

As regards B2B, the IDM was the first marketing organisation to recognise that there are significant differences between marketing to consumers and marketing to businesses, launching the UK’s first B2B-specific conference in 2003. This event continues as a staple of the B2B calendar to this day, and is another example of Professor Holder’s foresight.

More recently, he oversaw the rebranding of the IDM as the Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing – with the aim of embracing and encompassing the next wave of changes to have swept across the marketing industry.

Everyone at B2B Marketing would like to extend our sympathies and condolences to staff at the IDM, both past and present, who without doubt will feel the loss of Professor Holder deeply. As they will surely know, the best way they can honour his legacy is to maintain the institute’s reputation as one of the primary providers of marketing education and training, and a driving force for change and best practice in the marketing industry. 

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