IPA Publishes Tracking Study

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising has released its second ISBA members tracking study, which looks at the IPA effectiveness initiative and attitudes to advertising as an effective business tool.

The key findings of the research include:

• consumer advertising still dominates the marketing mix with 87% of the sample rating it to be very important (up 11% points on 1994).
• direct marketing, although fourth (behind PR and sales promotion) is beginning to make good ground at 50% (13% points on 1994).
• there is concern over the increasing difficulty in isolating advertising effect. Direct marketing techniques are still seen to give marginally more satisfaction than consumer advertising techniques when it comes to justifying budgets internally (63% are very/quite satisfied with direct marketing versus 56% with consumer advertising).
• the role of the IPA awards in helping to make the case for advertising is becoming increasingly important, with 75% of the client community believing the awards reflect real achievement, 52% that they are helpful in justifying marketing and ad expenditure and 36% claiming them to be of increasing relevance to their business.
• awareness of the new IPA initiatives is increasing, though still low, with growing awareness of the annual IPA ad effectiveness conference (40%), the IPA seminar programme (30%) and IPA involvement in the Marketing Forum (25%).

…The IPA has also elected Advertising Principles and Expert Media into membership. This brings the total number of agencies in the IPA to 225.

IPA: 0171 235 7020