Congratulations to AMV.BBDO!

IPA Effectiveness Agency of the year 2012!

Effectiveness Awards background here.

Hurrah for O2!

Announced today (FT page 21), Telefonica is axeing its spanish division as a standalone business and establishing a digital division in London, which will see 2,500 staff relocate to the UK!

It's all thanks to the success of 02, which, coincidentally, is the most awarded brand in the IPA Effectiveness awards, which now makes up the bulk of Telefonica's European operations.

Telefonica Digital will launch, from London, services based on digital advertising, entertainment, financial services and cloud computing.

Good news for the UK's reputation and profile as a creative and innovation hub to the world. And good for employment too.

New models of marketing effectiveness: from integration to orchestration

At last! A definitive view of integrated campaign management and implementation.

Based on analysis of over 250 IPA effectiveness awards cases, coupled with client and agency interviews with award winners.

It's being launched on Monday 20th June at the V&A Sackler Centre.

Be there or be square!

Social media rules

According to WARC the top search phrase on its site in 2010 was 'social media.' Facebook was also the leading brand being searched for (sought after?) on the WARC site, confirming users' thirst for more content and comment in the social media area. Feels almost omnipresent now doesn't it? 'Press Button B' could almost only have happened in an episode of Dr Who it seems.

On the IPA site, of the top six successful search terms used on the site, 'behavioural economics', 'case studies' and 'databank' were all in the top six. This reflects also the desire of users to understand better the decision-making processes that result in hugely effective advertising and marketing case studies, published for us by WARC. Unsurprisingly the IPA databank of case studies increasingly demonstrates the role played by social media in advertising effectiveness.

Refreshingly, cider was the product category most frequently searched on WARC in 2010. Love pear cider and love seeing brand entries for Copperhead, Strongbow and Magners all being submitted as case studies to the annual IPA Effectiveness Awards competitions: over 1400 case studies are available for download from the IPA databank. Cheers

IPA Effectiveness awards go global

It's been a few years now since the IPA's premier award scheme has allowed entries from outside of the UK.

But it's the first year that a live camera crew from China's news agency has been on site at the awards night to film proceedings and relay it back to China. They were not disappointed. There were three winners for Asia: Ogilvy & Mather Asia Pacific for Comfort, JWT London for HSBC Global (best international campaign) and Ogilvy & Mather Hong Kong for MTR.

It's all part of the IPA's grand plan to develop a UK/China nexus for advertising; in order to facilitate better transactions between the two countries for IPA member agencies and Chinese brand owners seeking to go global.

Next October the IPA is taking a delegation of member agencies and friends to China's International Advertising Festival where '30 years of IPA Effectiveness' will be a showcase exhibition. 88,000 people attended this year's event. By next year, it could be 100,000