IPA to set up new business policy group

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) is setting up a policy group to act as a voice for agencies on new business issues and to promote best practice.

A number of concerns over requests by the AAR for agencies to sign confidentiality agreements, long delays by advertisers in making decisions following pitches and abandonment of pitches half-way through are thought to have prompted moves to form the New Business Group.

The group will also be responsible for defining the role of new business and its place within an agency; promoting best practice; raising the perception of new business as an agency discipline; and providing a support network for ideas and confidential discussion, training, events and campaigning on issues relating to agency selection processes.

Its formation follows the publication of best practice guidelines governing agency client relationships that have been approved by the IPA, the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers, the Direct Marketing Association, the Marketing Communications Consultants Association and the Public Relations Consultants Association.

IPA director-general Hamish Pringle says: “We aim to create a forum for discussion and the exchange of ideas, which will build up industry best practice and ensure that the whole process is approached in an increasingly professional and cost-effective manner, to the benefit of both agencies and clients.”

Elections to select 12 people to be members of the group are being held by e-mail. It is expected that new business practitioners such as Lucy Bryn Davies, head of group marketing at Publicis; Marcus Brown, head of new business at Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R; David Muir, group development director at Ogilvy & Mather; and Judy Mitchem, marketing director at M&C Saatchi, will be among the candidates.