Philosophy & Competitive Advantages

The VEA has been founded in 1917 as an association for the promotion of interests of agencies. In the nearly 80 years since then, the VEA has been (and still is) regarded as the representative of consulting agencies in the area of commercial (marketing)communications.

Since some years, the VEA is also open for membership for those agencies, which are not accredited by the ROTA but do meet the own VEA requirements concerning professional quality and financial stability. In other words, it nowadays is possible for specialised agencies in the areas of Corporate Communications, Sales Promotion, Business to Business etc. to become member of the VEA, besides the what can be called ‘traditional’ full-service agencies. Essential is that those specialised agencies are involved in "wisdom & magic", in strategic counsel on behalf of their own clients, for that part of budget allocated by the client to that agency. It is for this reason that the association recently changed its name into: "VEA / Dutch association of Communication Agencies".

Nowadays, the approximately 115 VEA-members do represent over 75% of the actual turnover of all Dutch agencies, accredited by the publishers of dailies and magazines.