Peter Field

This newest IPA report by the marketing experts, Les Binet and Peter Field, uses evidence from hundreds of Effectiveness Awards case histories collated in the IPA Databank, to show how successful marketing strategy is shaped by the context in which brands and businesses operate. Building on previous IPA Databank reports which identified what makes for effective, long-term marketing, the authors show how marketers can adapt some general principles to the particular context of their brands. It is part of a series of reports on Marketing Effectiveness in the Digital Era, and builds on the launch of the IPA’s cross-industry EffWorks initiative (www.effwords.co.uk). The previous report, Media in Focus (IPA, 2017), updated the media-related findings of two earlier IPA Databank analyses: The Long and the Short of It, (IPA 2013) and Marketing in the Era of Accountability (WARC 2007).

Media in Focus, written by Les Binet and Peter Field, takes the changing media landscape as its focus and addresses, among others, the issues of: Does mass marketing still work Is tight targeting now the most efficient approach Is unpaid making paid media redundant It also investigates the broader issues of budgeting, planning and reporting, and challenges the industry to reconsider approaches to efficiency, ROMI and measurement strategy. It is the first part of a new series about Marketing Effectiveness in the Digital Era, produced in association with Google and Thinkbox, and updates the media-related findings of the IPA’s two previous analyses of the IPA Databank: Marketing in the Era of Accountability (WARC 2007) and The Long and the Short of It (IPA 2013).

This publication is the eagerly anticipated update of Marketing in the Era of Accountability, examining the impact of timescales of effect, exploring the tension between long and short-term strategies for brands and businesses as well as providing evidence-based recommendations on how best to approach investment in advertising. Les Binet and Peter Field return to explore a vital new area: how campaign results develop over time. This report focuses on a growing tension that exists between short-term response activity and long-term brand-building. Increasingly, there is a tendency to use very short-term online metrics as primary performance measures and this has dangerous implications for long-term success. Anyone involved in the complex world of multi-channel campaign development and evaluation needs to have a clear understanding of how short-term and long-term effects are different.