New IPA President Sarah Golding has pledged to maximise the potential of automation and machine-learning to enhance the advertising industry, while also protecting it from its dark side. Golding delivered her ‘Magic and the Machines’ agenda in her inaugural speech to an audience of leading figures from the communications and wider business communities at the IPA's Members’ Lunch.
Says Golding: “We are not all doomed to be replaced by robots, but neither are we too creative not to be impacted. I would therefore like my presidency to help create a new enthusiasm for what machines can do for agencies and the advertisers and brands we serve.
“We need to start seeing the opportunities to grow and change alongside our new automated colleagues, embracing the new tools available to us to be even better at what we do. And that starts with how we can harness them to help us create magic.”
To achieve this, Golding has focussed her agenda on three key areas: mastering the machines; magic with numbers; and monitoring the machines.
Mastering the machines
Helping agencies to use tech to create better brand experiences and to work with tech companies to develop the products and tools they need. This will be achieved through the creation of a platform for education, collaboration and inspiration, known as IPAi, and will include:
Magic with numbers – data and evaluation
Helping agencies to embrace data, using numbers as an input into creative thinking and targeting; and to better evaluate their data to enable greater understanding of how marketing with machines really works. This will be achieved through:
Monitoring the machines
Ensuring greater digital media quality and security, including guarding against ad fraud and ensuring better brand safety. This will be achieved through:
In rounding off her speech, Golding delivered a stark yet rallying cry to the audience: “Automation will change lives at every level in our industry. The machines will be our new colleagues. And they will be the smartest, fastest, most challenging colleagues any of us has ever had. But in order to make even more creative magic we must embrace the machines, enjoy the machines and trust the machines.”
Join the conversation on Twitter @The_IPA #MagicandtheMachines
View her full speech here:
View photos from the Members' Lunch here.
Note to editors:
Sarah Golding’s biography
Sarah is Chief Executive Officer and Partner of CHI & Partners, one of the UK’s leading advertising and communications agencies. Prior to that Sarah worked at Lowe Howard-Spink following graduation from Cambridge University. Across her career Sarah has worked with blue chip brands including Orange, Reebok, British Gas, Argos and NewsUK. She sits on the IPA Council, is an active member of WACL and for the last five years has been voted by Campaign magazine as one of the industry's top 10 account people. Sarah is a Non Exec of coffee company Cru Kafe and sits on the Great Ormond Street Christmas Committee. Sarah is married to David Golding, a co-founder of adam&eveddb, and is mother to Florence and step mother to Archie.
Roll call of IPA Presidents since 2005:
Tom Knox (2017-2015)
Ian Priest (2013-2015)
Nicola Mendelsohn (2011-2013)
Rory Sutherland (2009-2011)
Moray MacLennan (2007-2009)
David Pattison (2005-2007)
The role of the IPA President
During their two-year tenure, the IPA President sets an agenda as the head of the IPA’s Council to help shape its activities regarding: what agencies do (Creativity, media and effectiveness); how agencies make their money (Commercial); and who they need to do it well (Talent). They operate as the public face of the IPA and represent IPA members to the press and public. They present the views of the industry to interested parties on key issues – as developed with the IPA Council and IPA Director General Paul Bainsfair. They chair Council meetings and any key sub-groups which may derive from it.