IPA Excellence Diploma winners unveil persuasive provocations for future success of adland

The results announced today (23 September) follow four months of intensive study, in which the delegates had to craft and defend a persuasive, provocative and original belief rooted in deep strategic understanding and assessed through a written 3,500-word thesis, Viva and TED-style presentation. Their work is now published for the industry to read, watch and digest.

Throughout the process, candidates were supported, mentored and challenged by 50 leading figures from across the industry* and have been bestowed 14 Diplomas, including three Distinctions and five Upper Credits.

This year’s IPA Excellence Diploma in Brands graduates are:

• Alex Acosta, Creative Director (Managing Partner), McCann Birmingham
• Kally Boshnakova, Head of Creative at the Ministry of Justice (on secondment from WPP Media)
• Sam Collenette, Strategy Director, DRUM
• Olivia Collins, Account Director & Co-Head of Slingshot, John Ayling & Associates
• Andrew Fraser, Managing Director & Head of Strategy, BETC
• Hemal Gill, Independent Strategy Lead
• Bryan Hogg, Strategy Director, Bicycle
• Daniel Holt, Strategy Partner, Havas Media UK
• Tom Moloney, Executive Strategy Director, Koto
• Rachel Porter, Head of Influence Strategy – EMEA, Ogilvy
• Julian Roberts, Head of Strategy, WPP
• Thomas Soares, Marketing Strategist, Special Forces Strategy
• Jack Stanley, Senior Strategy Director. Golin Ketchum London
• Ben Thompson, Senior Account Manager, ICS-digital

In addition, three Special Prizes were awarded by IPA President and CEO of BBH, Karen Martin, Electric Glue Founding Partner and Excellence Diploma Co-Founder, Nick Kendall and IPA Excellence Diploma Co-Chairs Fern Miller and Laurence Green. The Special Prizes are:

The President’s Prize for Creative Impact: Sam Collenette, Strategy Director, DRUM   

Sam Collenette was awarded the President’s Prize for Creative Impact for his 3,500-word thesis, ‘Letting go to grow: The case for the polyphonic brand’ which explores the powerful opportunity to rethink how we create more relevant and resilient brands amid an uncertain world and fractured media landscape.

Throughout his essay, Sam contends that the industry needs to move away from thinking of a brand as a single, dominant authorial voice, and start thinking of it as something made up of many different and distinct voices, including creators, customers and LLMs that contribute to a brand's voice as much as a brand’s owned channels. By letting go of the illusion of control and certainty, and embracing and harnessing these difference voices, a brand can become “polyphonic”. According to Sam, “‘polyphonic brands’ are ones shaped by the voices that contribute to them and build a reciprocal relationship with their community, where the brand shapes culture and culture shapes the brands”.

Sam finishes by arguing that the brands “that have humility to listen to the voices around them, accept difference, evolve and move away from a single-minded position statement, are the ones that will continue to thrive”.

Commenting on the President’s Prize, Karen Martin said: “It has been so invigorating reading through all of the theses from this year’s IPA Excellence Diploma in Brands, and I particularly loved Sam’s new ‘polyphonic’ brand model. He embraces the idea that a modern brand is made up of multiple voices with their consumers, suppliers, internal and external stakeholders, creators and increasingly LLMs contributing to how it is perceived.

Founder's Prize for Most Original ‘I believe...’ thesis: Kally Boshnakova, Head of Creative at the Ministry of Justice (on secondment from WPP Media)

Kally was awarded the Founder's Prize for Most Original ‘I believe…’ thesis for ‘The great escape’, in which she argues that perfection is squeezing the life out of brands and makes the case for ‘imperfect brands’ being the future of brand building.

In her essay, Kally explores how the pursuit of efficiency, accessibility and globalisation through frictionless consumer tech is flattening cultural depth complexity and diversity, impacting everything from how we travel, to the music we enjoy. This dream of friction-free capitalism has kicked off a chain reaction that has led to many of the brand challenges we see today including a differentiation crisis and difficulty penetrating across a fragmented media landscape.

Drawing inspiration from the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, Kally argues “that brands cannot afford to feel like mass-produced perfection. To truly resonate with audiences and grow like cultural objects, brands must be imperfect”.

She concludes by outlining how the “imperfect brands” are “the ones that are strong enough to thrive in, and belong in, our contradictory and chaotic real world because they court cultural participation over corporate polish and embrace complexity and emotional range and a systemically open-ended brand porosity that invites people in”.

Commenting on the Founder's Prize, Nick Kendall said: “There are three things I look for in a great ‘I believe…’ thesis. First, clarity. Clarity of language, of flow and of support. Kally’s paper is crystal clear throughout. Second, does this paper feel right for our times? Does it capture the moment? We are in the Age of AI and Kally’s paper argues that human touch will become the ultimate premium. To truly embrace that premium, we need to truly embrace the humanity of our brands in all their glory and imperfection. We need to build our brands as imperfect heroes. Third, throughout Kally’s thesis you absolutely feel that you are engaging with her authentic pov. Not something borrowed or put on. An expression of her true self,

The Chair's Prize for Best Body of Work: Rachel Porter, Head of Influence Strategy – EMEA, Ogilvy

Rachel, who earned a Distinction across all three assessments for the IPA Excellence Diploma in Brands, wrote her final thesis, ‘The forecast is extinction’, on her belief that advertising kills media in the same way that natural disasters kill ecosystems.

In her essay, Rachel looks at the growth and decline of cable TV and commercial radio in the US to explain how channels build their audience on the promise of an ad-free environment before a period of value exchange where the consumer is willing to put up with the advertising. However, in the equivalent to how over-fishing can destroy a local fish population, when “the advertising load exceeds the ecosystems carrying capacity, the consumer will leave in an ‘extinction event”.

Using this framework, she argues that social media is on the brink of ‘extinction’, putting billions of dollars of media spend at risk and calls on the industry to learn an ecological literacy. Doing so will require marketers to develop “the ability to read a platform’s age, have the discipline to migrate their media spend before the collapse and build a platform-literate planning framework”.

Commenting on the Chair’s Prize, Fern Miller said: “The Diploma holds its delegates to a high standard, assessing their “I believe…” hypotheses across multiple formats, and challenging them along the way to read, assimilate and use a lot of data about Brands to participate in discussions and pitches.

Watch the TED-style presentations:

Read the ‘I believe...’ theses:

• The angel in the marble by Alex Acosta
• The great escape by Kally Boshnakova
• Letting go to grow: The case for the polyphonic brand by Sam Collenette
• Brands should attract consumers as if they are dating to marry by Olivia Collins
• The taming of the screw by Andy Fraser
• Finding liminescence by Hemal Gill
• The selfish gift by Bryan Hogg
• Florence, then the Machine by Dan Holt
• Hacks, headlines and the need for identities with depth by Tom Moloney
• The forecast is extinction by Rachel Porter
• A little less hero, a little more pantomime villain by Thomas Soares
• Blank Board Choice by Jack Stanley
• The spectacle trap by Julian Roberts
• Why brands need to stand on business by Ben Thompson

*IPA Excellence Diploma in Brands Co-Chairs:

• Fern Miller, Co-Founder and CSO, Uncharted
• Laurence Green, Director of Effectiveness IPA

IPA Excellence Diploma in Brands Judges:

• Pete Buckley, Connection Planning Director, Meta
• Dylan Davenport, EVP Brand, Weber Shandwick (That Lot!)
• Emily Fairhead-keen, Strategist, Lego
• Sera Holland, Independent Consultant, The Reputation Atelier
• Richard Huntington, Chief Strategy Officer, Feral
• Phil Jacobson, Chief Brand Officer, Vimergy
• Saskia Jones, Deputy Chief Strategy Officer, BBH
• Tish Mousell, Skills Trainer
• Maisie McCabe, UK Editor, Campaign
• Dino Myers Lamptey, Founder, The Barber Shop
• Rebecca Nunneley, Lead Consultant, AAR
• Caroline Pay, Creative Consultant, Ancient & Brave
• Joe Petyan, CEO, VML
• Tom Roach, VP Brand Strategy, Jellyfish
• Indy Saha, Founder, Human Zero One
• Amelia Torode, Head of Group Strategy - Ogilvy UK, WPP Creative

IPA Excellence Diploma in Brands Mentors:

• Mike Alhadeff, Freelance Strategy Director
• Isabelle Bale, Strategy Director, Europe, M&C Saatchi World Services
• Pete Coates, Managing Director, OMC Newcastle
• Tom Darlington, Head of Insight, Hearts & Science
• Graeme Douglas, Chief Strategy Officer & Co-Founder, Bicycle
• Omar El Gammal, Head Of Cultural Insight, Mother
• Holly Gilbertson, Managing Director, Pacer
• Lisa Gulley, Head of Strategy, Red Brick Road
• James Hart, Founder, Be More Jack
• Emily Rich, Strategy Partner, Wavemaker
• Matt Sadler, Freelance Strategy Director and Founder, Catching Light
• Asad Shaykh, Head of Strategy, Grey
• Lisa Thompson, Strategy & Planning Partner, Wavemaker North/WPP Media North

IPA Excellence Diploma in Brands Speakers:

• Cristina de Balanzo, Director, Walnut (part of Accenture Song)
• Rebecca Cawthorn-Smith, Founder, Yoobra
• Martin Deboo, Advisor & Author
• Nick Kendall, Founder, The Garage Soho
• Zanya Fahy, Head of Strategy, Toaster
• Ross Farquar, Marketing, Innovation and Sustainability Director, Little Moons
• Oli Feldwick, Chief Innovation Officer, Partner, T&P
• Cassandra Hall, Director of Marketing, Motorway
• Kate Higham, UK Managing Director, Born Social
• Dan Hill, Global Chief Strategy Officer, Wieden & Kennedy
• Richard Huntington, Chief Strategy Officer, Feral
• Phil Jacobson, Chief Brand Officer, Vimergy
• Ian Leslie, Author
• Karen Martin, CEO, BBH
• Hattie Matthews, Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer, Uncharted
• Mobbie Nazir, Global Chief Strategy & Growth Officer, We Are Social
• Dino Myers Lamptey, Founder, The Barber Shop
• Abba Newbery, Chief Marketing Officer, Dex
• Rebecca Nunneley, Lead Consultant, AAR
• Caroline Pay, Creative Consultant, Ancient & Brave
• Seb Royce, Creative & Communications Partner, EdenLab
• Andrew Tindall, Chief Growth Officer, System1
• Manish Tiwari, Founding Director, HereandNow365
• Amelia Torode, Head of Group Strategy - Ogilvy UK, WPP Creative