Effectiveness has to be a leadership issue, as well as a marketing discipline

When people hear the word effectiveness, I suspect their minds don't immediately leap to leadership and culture. They are more likely to think about measurement, data, econometrics, media investment and the reassuring charts at the back of a case study that prove the work did what everyone hoped it would do.

All of those things matter enormously, but by the time we're measuring whether something worked, hundreds of decisions have already been made that helped determine whether it ever stood a chance.

Connecting the questions that affect effectiveness

How much did we invest? Did we give the idea enough time? Did we hire brilliant people and trust them? Did we protect the work when it became uncomfortable? Did we create the kind of relationship where client and agency could challenge one another? Did we make something distinctive enough for anyone to notice or care about in the first place?

Those are questions about leadership as much as effectiveness, and one of the things I'm most interested in exploring at this year's IPA Effectiveness Conference is how much more closely we should connect the two.

Effectiveness isn't just about measurement

I've written recently about my belief that creativity is a leadership responsibility, because as the CEO of a creative business, everything I do ultimately comes back to improving the creative. I'm interested in the margin because it allows us to invest in brilliant people, in culture because talented people do better work when they're supported and challenged, and in building trusting relationships with clients because they give people the confidence to push each other and be braver.

Effectiveness should be viewed in much the same way, because an effectiveness culture isn't simply a business that has become very good at measuring things.

How can we develop language about creativity that boards can support?

I've always believed that the best work combines logic, magic and risk, and effectiveness needs all three.

This is one reason I'm particularly interested in the discussion around creativity, commitment and commercial growth at this year's conference, which starts with the question of whether advertising should be treated as a cost to be managed or an asset to be built, before looking at how we create a language around creative effectiveness that the boardroom can understand and get behind.

Advertising investment ultimately depends on the confidence of people well beyond the marketing department, and creativity can sometimes struggle in those conversations because its value isn't always immediate, neat or easily expressed in the language of a balance sheet.

Some of the world's most valuable brands have been built through creative ideas that have been protected, invested in and applied consistently over many years, and another session will look specifically at the relationship between creativity, effectiveness and financial brand value, including the extraordinary long-term value created by Specsavers' Should've Gone to Specsavers platform.

Making that case is part of effective leadership. If we want boards to invest confidently in creativity, those of us who believe in its commercial power have a responsibility to explain that power in terms the wider business understands.

A company's culture and leaders help it make the right choices

There are versions of that same leadership challenge throughout the conference. It's a packed schedule covering very different subjects, but they all involve choices about where we invest, what we protect, when we change course, and what we are prepared to back for the longer term. Evidence helps us make those choices, but the culture in which they are made matters too.

This year's conference will finish, appropriately, with the IPA Effectiveness Awards 2026 Grand Prix winner's interview and the chance to hear from the people behind the decisions, thinking and work that delivered its results.

For me, that's always the fascinating part of effectiveness – not simply establishing that something worked, but understanding everything that had to happen to make that work possible.

That's what I'm looking forward to exploring at the IPA Effectiveness Conference in October – not just how we measure work that works, but how, as leaders, we can help create more of it.

The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and were submitted in accordance with the IPA terms and conditions regarding the uploading and contribution of content to the IPA newsletters, IPA website, or other IPA media, and should not be interpreted as representing the opinion of the IPA.