IPA Effectiveness Conference, 2026
In October 2026 I was invited to host a series of conversations at The IPA Effectiveness Conference.
On the day I was joined at Shoreditch Town Hall by around 100 delegates for a debate on the theme of “The Unanswered Questions In Effectiveness”.
We discussed how, whilst we have a rich body of evidence in the fields of marketing science, creative effectiveness and media effectiveness, these disciplines are still relatively young. How Brand’s Grow, for example, was published in 2010. The Long and the Short of It in 2013. And Lemon in 2019.
And as a result, we agreed that what we don’t know must far outweigh what we do; and that rather than focussing on the evidence that we do have, our time might be better spent talking about the evidence that we don’t have.
The sessions were held under Chatham House Rule, so I won’t name the contributors. But here are some of the topics that we covered:
How do we measure attention more accurately? Our industry has conflated eye-tracking and attention, but these are not the same thing. You can’t eye-track audio ads, for example.
How do small brands grow? Most of our evidence is based on big brands, consumer goods categories and award winning campaigns. So do we really know how small and medium sized brands should operate?
What is the 95:5 rule for different B2C categories? John Dawes research found that 95% of customers are out-of-market at any one time. But this was largely born out of an analysis of B2B categories. What is the ratio across B2C?
If I strengthen an association between my brand and a category entry point, will it grow? We know that big brands tend to be associated with more category entry points, and that those associations also tend to be stronger. But we don’t know which way around that relationship works. Do strong associations cause a brand to become big, or does becoming big cause associations to strengthen.
How much of ‘loyalty’ is driven by an innate emotional attachment or connection, and how much is driven by much more mundane, prosaic factors, such as distribution or price advantage?
Thank you to the IPA for inviting me to the conference, to everyone who joined me across the three sessions, and to those who provided me with such rich stimulus ahead of the event.
I loved it and am already looking forward to next year.