Experience the value of experience

The IPA Effectiveness Awards' Mentoring Scheme is a great way for marketers and agencies to tap into some of the best talent and experience in the industry to help them craft their awards submission. The value of a critical eye and a sage-like helping hand guiding your through the complex crafting process is priceless. Whether your challenge is in deciding whether or not you have a case or in getting to a final version that makes the best of your effectiveness case, the Mentors are there to support you.

Building the case on strong foundations

From many years of experience, we can say that it is often at the very initial stage that entrants benefit most, but mentors can also add a lot of value in helping to ‘judge-proof’.

The kick-off is often a ‘power hour’ to help ensure that the case is built on strong foundations. What is the strategic angle for your story? What was the problem that your creative experiences were trying to solve, what was the behavioural issue? Crucially, (after all, this is the most rigorous effectiveness award in the world), can you provide clarity on your objectives and how you went about achieving them? What was your insight (and I do mean a real insight, not research findings…)? All of this helps focus the gathering, analysis and presentation of the data you will need to prove your case.

The IPA Effectiveness Awards 2026 Mentors

The IPA sets a high bar for mentor selection. They include multiple IPA Award winners themselves, with senior standing in the strategic community, and people involved in the IPA Effectiveness Accreditation judging process. The 2026 Mentor list is a class act of senior industry figures which includes Chris Baker, Ali Bucknall, Fran Cassidy, Will Goodhand, Tony Regan, Mark Stockdale, and Rachel Walker.

The Awards have set the highest bar for effectiveness ever since Dr. Simon Broadbent helped inaugurate them in 1980. He did so as he saw the need at the time for marketers and agencies to demonstrate the value of their work up the food chain all the way to the C-Suite. In a rapidly changing communications landscape, with the exponential rise of technology, the overload of data, and so many structural factors working against marketers, that need is arguably greater today than ever before.

Why the Effectiveness Awards matter

The IPA Awards remain THE best way to capture new effectiveness learnings and show your clients, your company board, your shareholders and the markets that marketing works at a perceptual, behavioural and, crucially, at a commercial level. In the toughest of economic times, when every budget is under pressure, the ability to understand what creative success looks like and how you got there is of paramount importance. I would argue that it is the single most important requirement for our industry right now, that and developing brand ideas which multiply the impact of everything you do, across the mix and over time.

Consider adding a celebrated ‘barrister’ to the team

The IPA Mentor Scheme offers a breadth of experience to help you structure and present your case (it’s like having a celebrated barrister on your team), ensuring that you have the best chance of submitting the strongest possible case, no matter if you are a recent start up, several years in, or a long-established business.

The IPA Awards have always been a window on new thinking and ways of delivering marketing effectiveness in a changing environment. As Mentors, we don’t just get the satisfaction of helping great cases come together, we also learn a lot from the great and often innovative work done by those we mentor.

Gurdeep Puri is Chair of the IPA Effectiveness Awards 2026 Mentorship Scheme and Co-founder, The Effectiveness Partnership & The House of Creative Impact.

What advice would Effectiveness Mentors give Awards authors?

Chris Baker, Partner, Bacon Strategy & Research

1. Start early – allow plenty of time to gather data, share drafts and craft the narrative.
2. Commercial payback – through data and analysis show how your work turned into money.
3. Causality – rigour in establishing linkage between your work and outcomes, taking account of other factors.
4. Excellence – find and focus on what’s exceptional and/or innovative about your case; it’s a competition, the best win.
5. Judge-proof your paper – address potential criticisms (get critical eyes on it before entry) and make it an easy, enjoyable read, with clear data presentation (read Dr Grace Kite’s ‘killer charts’ advice).

Will Goodhand, Freelance Strategy & Insight Consultant

When writing Effectiveness Papers, the third most important aspect is buy-in. The second is buy-in. And the first? You guessed - buy-in.

Isn’t it enough to win organisational support for a brave, distinctive campaign that’s boosted brand and sales alike? ’Afraid not. Without early buy-in for your paper, it risks being spiked or stymied when crucial data suddenly becomes 'confidential’.

Resist the urge to build and guild your case in secret. Sell the idea early, as you did the campaign. Persuade decision-makers that their insight and involvement deserve recognition by a discerning audience. Do that, and they may even chase the data up for you!

Tony Regan, Partner Work Research

My answer is framed by my experience as an IPA mentor over the past ten years, and re-cast as advice for me to give rather than get.

Like the best insight, it seems obvious. I heard it from Roisin Mulroney, author of the latest Grand Prix winner, McCain, who’d been guided to ‘start with the charts’.

As a concise, rhyming soundbite, it’s a memorable reminder to build the case from solid evidence rather than writing lots of fluffy prose and hoping the argument will eventually reveal itself.

If you really want to work in prose, then challenge yourself to a tight word count for an exec summary of your paper. Not a slow-build, but get straight to the point, and see if it holds up.

Mark Stockdale, Partner, The Effectiveness Partnership

My first foray into writing an IPA Effectiveness paper (Leagas Delaney, 1990-ish) was as exciting as it was terrifying. It felt like scaling a massive mountain without a map or destination. Having someone to explain what good looks like and how to know when you’ve got there would’ve made all the difference.

So, start at the end – the killer results chart – and work a cast-iron logic back from there. Turn this logic into a narrative that drives inexorably into those results; the why, the how of it all. And grip your reader; tell a story they’ll genuinely care about.

Rachel Walker, Chief Strategy Officer

I wish a mentor had told me how crucial it is to secure client buy-in upfront. I poured months into the first IPA paper I ever wrote, only for it to fall at the final hurdle when the client wouldn’t sign it off. It was a painful but valuable lesson.

These days, I engage clients early and often, building in plenty of time for reviews. Some clients have been so integral to shaping the story, I’ve listed them as co-author. It doesn’t only make sign-off simpler, it makes the story stronger.

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.