IPA Plans To Change Measurement Of Agency Performance

Graham Hinton, the president of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), has announced that the Institute is to create two league tables for the advertising industry – one based on billings, the other on gross income.

The IPA Council decided that billings alone does not give clients a satisfactory measure of an agency’s performance. It was determined that a second league table was needed, which shows fee income from the profession’s entire range of services.

Members of the IPA have been sent a letter which encourages them to cooperate in this new system and have been asked if they are willing to let their 1998 gross income figure be published mid-year.

“Estimated billings still have a value in charting how much expenditure goes through an agency and how much space has been bought in which to place the advertising that they have created. However,” says Hinton, “at a time when agencies are increasingly involved in remuneration for stand-alone marketing advice, direct marketing, website design and other marketing communication activity, it seems the right decision to emphasise that agencies do more than ads, and to introduce a complementary 1998 league table based on income.”

If enough agencies agree to the proposals, the IPA will publish a table of agencies which generate an income in excess of £500,000; this would cover around two-thirds of the total IPA membership.

IPA: 0171 235 7020