Currys was a strong winner of the 2026 IPA Effectiveness Grand Prix – and a popular choice in the room on the night. In just two years, Omnicom’s AMV BBDO has delivered £500m worth of incremental revenue for Currys, returned the retailer to growth, increased market share, and upped ROI by 44%. Publicis Groupe’s Spark Foundry take credit for the media.
The “Beyond techspectations” campaign might not be the most creatively noteworthy, but its populist tone hits the right note and the entry has the kudos – in the days when so much is shifting online – of having a story of flesh and blood plus bricks and mortar behind it. As the UK’s biggest consumer electronics retail chain, Currys’ investment and AMV’s creative approach have together managed to persuade people that in-person, expert help is worth seeking out when you are making complex and often expensive purchasing decisions.
Effectiveness Company of The Year was Omnicom, helped along by PHD Media’s Effectiveness Agency of the Year win.
The President’s Prize for creative Effectiveness, newly introduced by IPA president Karen Martin to celebrate the contribution of creativity to business success, was awarded to Andrex and credited to Omnicom, although the work was created pre-merger by Interpublic’s FCB (now part of Omnicom’s AMV BBDO).
Mother and Wavemaker’s work for Nationwide work won the Channon Prize for Best New Learning (building on NCA’s original campaign) for successfully replacing costly customer incentives with investment in brand marketing. Specsavers was honoured with the Broadbent prize for best dedication to effectiveness thanks to £635m in incremental profit over 24 years; Best Not-For-Profit was NCA’s Alzheimer’s Society work; and Best Small Budget campaign was VML’s NHS blood and transplant work.
Tesco’s UK customer director Suzanne Quinn was chair of judges. She spoke with conviction about the importance of building effectiveness into the whole process from brief to media buy; how effective advertising builds bonds of trust between the consumer, the agency and the marketer; and why good advertising is more than an idea – it’s a business asset. There was also a plea to fellow clients to share their data more, because the whole industry benefits when there is good evidence out there to prove its case.
Of Currys, Quinn said: “It went far beyond advertising. It demonstrated how marketing can act as a real catalyst for business-wide transformation, earning a seat at the top table and helping drive meaningful change across an organisation. What I especially admire about this work is the way it put Currys’ colleagues at the heart of the growth story, turning their expertise into a genuine competitive advantage.”
There’s an element of these awards that strongly favours the agencies that have the resources to devote to the painstaking work of building an IPA entry, hence the dominance of the holding companies. But in many ways it’s become the most celebratory of all the advertising prize givings, because it shows that there’s still a case to be made for an investment in “proper” brand advertising as well as all the cash thrown at short-lived social media hits.
