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Comms Council collaboration with UK counterpart brings IPA’s professional development programs to Australia

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Comms Council collaboration with UK counterpart brings IPA’s professional development programs to Australia

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The Communications Council has announced a collaboration with its UK counterpart, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), to deliver the IPA portfolio of qualifications and courses to agencies and clients in the Australian marketing communications market. 

The Communications Council, which represents approximately 260 Australian marketing communications agencies, says it’s a, “landmark agreement” between the Australian and UK agency trade bodies.

The partnership is part of a broader movement to create a global benchmark for best practice in professional development for the advertising profession around the world.

While 18,000 of the IPA’s 21,000 members are signed up to the IPA Continuous Professional Development Program in the UK, the curriculum has also begun spreading organically overseas. Since the online qualifications launched, more than 11,000 people have achieved an IPA qualification in more than 60 countries. The Communications Council will now be the first industry body to formally adopt and implement online and experiential IPA courses internationally.

The Australian alliance involves two main elements: the localising of the IPA’s core online qualifications for the Australian market, as well as a licensing agreement that will allow The Communications Council to run the IPA’s experiential advertising courses across Australia.

The IPA’s president, Ian Priest, who’s also founding partner at VCCP and group COO at CSM, said in a statement: “Our goal is to set benchmarks for best practice in the global advertising profession. There is clear evidence from our agencies in the UK of the direct and powerful link between investing in people and business performance – ultimately our thinking adds value to our clients’ brands and drives real competitive growth. I am therefore delighted that we have collaborated with The Communications Council in order to share our global benchmark of best practice learning with agencies and clients in the Australian advertising industry.”

Margaret Zabel, CEO of The Communications Council, said: “Elevating the industry’s continuous professional development to a global standard provides the necessary opportunities required to attract and retain today’s best talent. Collaborating with the IPA ensures access to internationally recognised and respected qualifications and also lays the foundation for The Communications Council to go on to deliver individual accreditation to those within our industry.”

The first IPA qualification to be rolled out in Australia by The Communications Council will be the Foundation Certificate, the industry’s key entry-level qualification that provides juniors with an understanding of the entire brand communications process. The qualification, which has been tailored to the Australian market, consists of 30 hours of online learning and an offline two-hour exam which will be held in locations across Australia.

The first IPA experiential course to be rolled out by The Communications Council in Australia will be the Campaign Planning course. The three-day intensive course takes delegates from client brief to campaign solution so as to create understanding of how strategic, creative and media planning is integral to the creation of effective advertising.

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Peter Roper

Editor of Marketing and Marketing Mag from 2013 to 2017. Tweets as @pete_arrr.

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