IPA and APA launch first interactive advertising guidelines
The IPA and Advertising Producers Association have today launched the industry’s first set of guidelines for interactive advertising design development.
The framework takes individuals through the process of producing interactive work – from the initial brief to maintenance of the finished project.
The guidance is a result of 18 months’ work by a team of digital specialists from both agencies and production companies, and follows the pattern of the 1987 Pliatzky recommendations on the production of TV adverts – better known today as the Producing Advertising Commercials report.
“It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the Pliatzky Report to the smooth working of the TV commercial production industry,” said Geoff Russell, director of media affairs at the IPA.
“Generations of TV producers who have never heard of its recommendations have followed and still work to its guidelines. We are hoping that the IPA/APA Interactive Framework will be just as important and as useful for interactive projects in advertising.”
Says Steve Davies, CEO of the Advertising Producers Association, added: “This is a great moment in interactive advertising – establishing a solid foundation for great work in interactive, in the same way the TV contract had been for TV production.”
The guidelines will be available to download free of charge from the IPA and APA websites later today.
Why does the industry need this, and why now?
Lins Karnes, managing director and executive producer, B-Reel, and Ed Hornby, director of digital delivery, VCCP, offer their views on the guideline’s production.
In all honesty, this initiative has been long overdue, but not for the want of trying – there’s many a head of production that has attempted to create a unified process and rally others to adopt it. Stndrd.org went a long way to helping the industry; but it lacked the detail that exists in the Framework and that’s what is required to take the industry to the next level.
Currently, we are in a situation where there can be a great deal of confusion between production companies, the agencies and their clients. As a result, a lot of time, money and effort can be wasted – and more importantly, the creative quality and success of projects can be at risk.
Part of this has been due to the novelty of interactive production for many of the teams working on the agency and client sides. Part has also been due to how both the prodco and agency organisations have grown their processes to best fit their structures and heritage. The result being that we are doing things differently from project to project and brand to brand, but frequently we find we are not even speaking the same language!
By creating a unified process via the Framework and agreeing a common terminology for the all the phases of the process, the deliverables within each stage, the tasks undertaken, and the documentation required, we’re going to make this all a lot easier, and it will make a lot more sense to a lot more people.
But most of all, it’s about understanding the roles and the responsibilities of each party involved. A project can’t be successful if we’re all pointing in different directions – with many of the team not clear who’s supposed to do what.
By following the IPA/APA Interactive Framework and a code of conduct that everyone can understand, we can start to remove the confusion and frustration and so increase the quality and effectiveness of the work we produce – which not only will instil greater confidence in our clients to invest in interactive, but is at the heart of why we all work in this creative business.