IPA: Institute of Practitioners in Advertising

www.ipa.co.uk
The IPA exists to serve, promote and anticipate the collective interests of advertising agencies, and to define, develop and help maintain the highest possible standards of professional practice within the advertising business, in particular through promotion of the IPA Advertising Effectiveness Awards Scheme. The IPA is governed by a Council, drawn from IPA member companies and individuals who have been elected as IPA members. There are 200 member companies, who collectively handle over 80 per cent of all advertising placed by UK agencies, and 1,020 personal members. The IPA has a dual role within the agency business. First, it acts as spokesman for its members, representing them on issues of common concern and speaking on their behalf in negotiations with media bodies, government departments and unions. Second, the IPA contributes to the effective operation of member companies through its advisory, training and information services.

IPA Advertising Effectiveness Awards Competition
The IPA Advertising Effectiveness Awards was launched in 1980. The objective was, and still is, to achieve three things:

• a better understanding of the crucial role advertising plays in marketing;
• closer analysis of advertising effectiveness and improved methods of evaluation
• a clear demonstration that advertising can be proven to work, against measurable criteria.

The Awards are conducted every two years. Submissions take the form of 4,000 word essays plus data tables and graphs. The papers are written by advertising agencies, with the full co-operation and endorsement of their client. No case history is allowed to enter the Awards without a senior client signature.

The judging for the Awards is unique in advertising awards schemes because it comprises more experts from outside the advertising agency world than experts within it.

There are two judging panels

Stage One - A panel of industry specialist advisers will shortlist the entries and provide commentaries from a technical perspective for the second panel.

Stage Two - A panel of senior business figures from client companies together with the convenor and deputy convenor award stars to each case, based on their 'real world' business experience and the technical commentary provided by the Stage One judges.

Only the Convenor and Deputy Convenor of Judges come from advertising agencies. The Chairman of Judges is also Chairman of a major British company.

Award entries are received in June and the Award announcements are made in November.

• The 5 star system was introduced in 1998.
• The overall Grand Prix will be awarded to the most outstanding paper.
• The Charles Channon Award will be given to the case that makes the best contribution to new learning about how to isolate advertising's effects.
• The Effectiveness Agency of the Year Awards will be given to the highest-scoring agencies with declared billings of above £100m (based on the Campaign Top 300 report)
• There will be a new separate category of international cases from markets outside the UK, also judged on the 5 star system.
• The ISBA Award will be given to the best first time client company entry.
• The Award for the best e-commerce/internet entry.
• Judges may award one Special Commendation to the best paper in each star group.

The IPA Advertising Effectiveness Data Bank represents the most rigorous and highly acclaimed examination of how advertising works in the marketplace in the world. Since the launch of the awards in 1980, the IPA has collected over 700 case histories of best practice in advertising development and results across a wide spectrum of marketing sectors and expenditures. Case histories to date feature 450 brands and 28 business categories. Each case history contains about 4,000 words of text and is illustrated in full by market research, sales and profit data. Full text and abstracts of all these case histories are available as part of the Warc.

IPA Members are entitled to a 10% discount on a subscription to Warc.