The IPA's report "The Future of Advertising and Agencies", written by The Future Foundation, looks at the future of advertising, analysing trends and the opportunities for the industry.

Within it is a new definition of marketing communications, categorising them as:

Display v Classified
One way v Two way
Named v Not named
Screen v Non screen

The IPA's prediction is for "exponential growth in screen advertising" and, in the words of IPA Director General, Hamish Pringle "creators of good quality short form content will prosper".

The chart below shows the IPA's prediction for the growth of screen based advertising- with the central line marking the median estimate of growth.

For more information on The Future of Advertising and Agencies or to buy a copy of the report, go to www.ipa.co.uk

Our Branded Content conference at BAFTA brought 170 people from the APA membership and agencies, including delegates from Europe, together to hear the latest thinking on Branded Content. All the presentations were excellent and provided genuine insights into the future for producers of commercials. Micky Tudor (CHI) spoke about how to engage consumers across media, demonstrating this by way of a film showing him presenting his talk on the street outside BAFTA, to the bemusement of shoppers, demonstrating his point about the need to engage. He also spoke about the need for brands to ensure they were not seduced by the opportunities of new media into going off-brand. Mark Cridge (Glue) shared his insights into the keys to success in new media " a good idea, brought to life with good craft skills, with intelligent thought applied to deciding the best channels to utilise." Steven Hess from Weapon 7 reinforced the importance of all material reflecting the brand's values but also stressed the importance of understanding the different contexts different media provide. Hamish Pringle from the IPA introduced the major new report from the IPA on the future of advertising. The report redefines advertising as, for example, screen and non-screen, envisaging that commercials on television or on a telephone, for example, will be seen as one solution to the advertisers objectives. Vanella Jackson from Hall and partners explained how research models for branded content were now in place, to be used to establish that it produced returns for advertisers Tess Alps from Thinkbox explained why television advertising has a bright future in the branded content future (see Thinkbox below). Kathryn Parsons from Ogilvy told us about the success of their project for Save the Children Fund on Second Life. Marc Giusti from Good Technology explained the success of their launch of the Audi RS4 over a wide variety of media, from TV to the internet. Jess Greenwood from Contagious concluded the event with an insightful look at the best of branded content from around the world. The tone of the event was markedly different from last year, with anxiety replaced by enthusiasm as to the prospects for producers in a world in which consumers will see a great deal more audio-visual advertising and where it will be even more important to advertisers that the content they create is creative and engaging and makes an impact.