CAANZ to bring award-winning IPA qualifications to NZ

CAANZ to bring award-winning IPA qualifications to NZ communications industry

30 June 2015 - CAANZ is pleased to announce that it has forged an alliance with its counterpart in the United Kingdom, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), to deliver the IPA portfolio of award-winning qualifications and courses to agencies and clients in the New Zealand marketing and communications market.

Under the agreement, the IPA and CAANZ will launch with two of IPA globally recognised qualifications and online courses, The IPA Effectiveness Test and the IPA Commercial Certificate, and deliver them to CAANZ Industry Members.

CAANZ CEO, Paul Head says that the new alliance will give the local industry access to an international professional development offering that has not previously been available in NZ.

“We’re very excited about this alliance with the IPA. Globally, the IPA sets the benchmark for best practice in our industry. Having the IPA qualifications and courses now available to the local communications industry is a significant milestone for professional development within New Zealand.”

“As a creative industry, our greatest asset is our creativity and ingenuity. The quality of our thinking adds measurable value to our clients’ brand and businesses and it’s critical that agencies and marketing organisations continue to invest in their people in a rapidly evolving world. The alliance with the IPA will add value to our members and our client businesses, ” says Head.

The response from local agencies to the CAANZ IPA alliance has been extremely positive. Simon Lendrum, Managing Director, J. Walter Thompson New Zealand and President of the CAANZ Executive Board says that while we already have a number of world class courses in New Zealand, individuals with IPA qualifications add a further layer of credibility to their bow.

“The IPA training programmes are best in class and anyone looking to develop their strategic planning skills will benefit from the Eff Test, safe in the knowledge that they will be developing globally relevant skills that can be applied locally. Those of us who have participated in the programmes cite them as key learning moments in our careers.” says Lendrum.

The IPA is the trade body and professional institute for 300 UK advertising and marketing agencies which together manage media and marketing budgets valued at over £30 billion per annum. The role of the IPA is to promote the value of agencies. It is also a spokesman for the business and it runs a number of programmes to define, help and maintain the highest possible standards of professional practice. The IPA’s qualifications programme has been running for over a decade and over 11,000 individuals from across the globe have passed an IPA qualification.

The agreement with CAANZ is part of a broader movement to create a global benchmark for best practice in professional development for the advertising profession around the world. The IPA’s world class award winning learning and development is widely regarded in international markets, particularly as the content is written and conceived by existing agency practitioners from every discipline.

ENDS

© Scoop Media