The IPA (Advertising) Effectiveness Awards 1980 - 2002: A Reflection of Non-Marketing Advertising

Abstract

Theoretically, advertising has been regarded as a marketing communication; that is, advertising is subsumed under marketing. However, this thesis deconstructs the existing theories and argues that advertising historically was not a marketing tool due to practical conflicts within the British advertising industry. Field work was conducted by means of interviews in addition to document research of publications by practitioners. After the Second World War, marketing people in Britain adopted the modern marketing concepts from the US where marketing and advertising people used the same principles and practice of advertising. The thesis traces back to fundamental concepts in social sciences such as economics, sociology and psychology that marketing and advertising people applied to their disciplines. Then, relevant historical backgrounds including the history of advertising agencies, market research and account planning are explored. They indicate that advertising was not part of marketing communications but rather located between marketing and communications. The application of various social sciences and the historical backgrounds govern British agency people's practice of advertising research during the 1960s and 1970s. They used research to explain advertising effectiveness in terms of both communication and sales. However, they found some disagreements between their concepts and that of marketing people in their client companies. They felt more frustrated when clients and research companies used scientific principles and practice in measuring advertising effectiveness. The 1960s and 1970s events led to the origin of the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) Awards in 1980. The IPA Awards were in fact the consequence of the past as they tried to maintain their stance of developing advertising effectiveness theories as opposed to those of clients and research companies for two decades. However, as the Awards grew and became one of the most recognised award schemes in the industry, they were used by agency people as a tool to increase their agencies' reputation rather than a demonstration of advertising effectiveness.