What do you believe is the future of our industry?

I never need much encouragement to write about the merits of the IPA Excellence Diploma. I was fortunate enough to be a part of the ‘class of 2012’. 

Every time a new Diploma intake begins their studies, I am filled with a mix of envy and excitement. Excitement because I cannot wait to see the work that the new students will produce during their studies, confident that these new ideas will enrich an already stellar ‘back-catalogue’ of thinking produced by course alumni.

And envy? Because of the transformative journey that awaits each student. The Diploma has been one of the most intense but rewarding experiences of my career. The ideas, knowledge and people it introduced me to have been a cornerstone of my working life ever since.

Everything communicates

You don’t have to be a historian to appreciate that the class of 2026 will undertake their studies in a vastly different context from the one I did. The marketing supply chain has changed in profound ways. This is inevitable. Change is the only constant.

The monoculture of the broadcast era has given way to an altogether more diverse and widely distributed toolkit through which we must ply our trade. The idea that ‘everything communicates’ has never been more important.

Linear TV’s ‘babies’ have matured into adolescence. The time spent with social now borders on the antisocial. Shelf-Wobblers and Gondola-ends have had a glow up, rebranding as the altogether more dynamic and data-driven retail media.

Brands no longer compete purely with competitors in the aisle in their hunt to gain a share of consumer attention, but with civilian creators too. The promises and pitfalls of Generative AI are reframing how we think about the craft of communication and how we engage with the business of building meaningful brands.

However, it is not just the canvas that we work with that has changed beyond all recognition, but the context in which we operate too.

From the NICE decade to a thoroughly nasty year…

Post COVID, I naively thought I was done with the word ‘unprecedented’. In the last nine months, this word has become a firm part of my vocabulary again.

Trump, tariffs, conflicts, climate change, persistent inflation…. Any one of these issues in isolation would present a significant challenge to business. In concert? Almost unthinkable, were it not for the fact that this is the reality that marketers and their partners find themselves managing every day.

If the decade that preceded my studies was characterised by No Inflation and Constant Expansion (NICE), the year leading up to the new delegates starting their Diploma journey can only really be described as NASTY.

At the core of the Diploma is a question posed to students: What do you believe? The course is, at its heart, an advertisement for the power and necessity of critical thinking. A chance for students to challenge the assumptions they may have subscribed to and develop their own view.

To make a case for their own convictions – and their own vision of our industry’s future.

Belief? Now, more than ever

Whilst it is an inevitability that the canvases and contexts we work with will change, we must continue to make robust, impassioned arguments for the contribution our industry provides – to business, to the economy and to society – if we’re to thrive in the future.

The syllabus – the tutors, materials and the forums that the IPA creates for learning and collaboration to take place within the setting of the Diploma – offers something else to students. Belief.

Belief in the power and potency of what we as an industry have done for business previously and what we will do again in the future.

At a time when it feels like collective belief is vanishingly thin on the ground, this is perhaps the real contribution that the Diploma makes to our industry.

Yes, it instils in our future leaders the power to think critically. More importantly though, it offers them the vocabulary and arsenal to advocate for the power of commercial creativity to shape the fortunes of companies both big & small, in both the short and long term.

Now more than ever, we need voices that can cut through the noise, leaders whose actions are driven by deep conviction and those who will always choose optimism over cynicism whenever the chance arises. The Diploma has always been a proving ground for those who demonstrate those qualities. Long may that continue.

Tom Darlington is Head of Consumer Insight at Hearts & Science International and was part of the IPA Excellence Diploma in Brands 2012. The 2026 intake, co-Chaired by Fern Miller and Laurence Green, is open for applications.

The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and were submitted in accordance with the IPA terms and conditions regarding the uploading and contribution of content to the IPA newsletters, IPA website, or other IPA media, and should not be interpreted as representing the opinion of the IPA.