IPA Speaker's Cup 2022

Each year agencies put forward one person to take on the challenge and deliver a 2-minute speech on a topic that they would like to spotlight in the advertising industry. The main objective being to champion people speaking passionately and persuasively on their feet without relying on PowerPoint. We had the highest calibre of speeches to date from the following participants: Osagie Samuel from The&Partnership, Megham McKenna from Billion Dollar Boy, Lee Mabey from Dentsu, Maria Tudor from The Kite Factory, Ieva Butenaite from Hearts & Science, Amie Goldstein from St Luke’s, Reshana De Silva from Hunterlodge Advertising, Loveday Weller from Generation Media, Millie Dunne from M&C Saatchi and Annabelle Kennedy-Hanson from WAA Chosen.

The competition:

We were very excited to be able to welcome the participants to the IPA to present their speeches in person. Everyone discussed very pertinent topics, such as how gender-based marketing is bad for business, the lie of meritocracy and how the ad agency should offset their carbon footprint. This year worked especially well as everyone had already practiced their speeches and received feedback on their content, voice and body language prior to the day meaning that the finished results were particularly polished. We were also lucky to have Pedro Martins from Total Media on the judging panel.

The winner, Lee Mabey, from Dentsu, really took the advertising industry to task on the issues of classicism. He shared shocking statistics, like the fact that 1 / 3 people in C-suite positions in the industry are privately educated. It was a very rousing speech that highlighted the lack of social mobility within the industry. In a similar vein, in second place, Osagie Samuel from The&Partnership highlighted the lack of diversity in the industry, and especially those at C-suite level. He exposed the hypocrisies of diversity in adverts as purely paying lip service to the issue, as this diversity did not extend to those creating the ads. In joint third, we had Loveday Weller from Generation Media, Reshana De Silva from Hunterlodge Advertising, and Amie Goldstein from St Luke’s.

The speeches:

It was a great networking event with all those participating enjoying champagne after the winners were announced, with the winner receiving £600 and a half-day training session on behalf of his agency from Make Yourself worth £1,250. Osagie in second received £200 while those in joint third will receive £100. The Speaker’s Cup, once engraved, will be at Dentsu for the year.