Specsavers honoured for their Dedication to Effectiveness at IPA Awards

This Special Prize is awarded to the client company that has consistently demonstrated its commitment to effectiveness and evaluation.

Specsavers has been awarded Gold at the IPA Effectiveness Awards in 2014, 2024 and now 2026, with each paper charting the challenges, evolution and extraordinary results that led to ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers’:

• The 2014 case study, ‘Should've Gone to Specsavers - A far-sighted view of advertising's role in building a business over 30 years’ charted the origins of the campaign and how the decision to use humour turned the brand into a category leader,
• The 2024’s ‘I Don't Go’ paper built detailed how Specsavers subverted the ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers’ theme to drive the significant growth for the brand's Home Visits proposition.
• The 2026 Gold-winning case study ‘The serious value of humour’ brings these elements together to tell the story of how ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers’ became a fixture in British culture, before localised variations had a similar impact across Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Northern Europe.

Says Laurence Green, Director of Effectiveness, IPA:

“Just do what Specsavers does.” It’s a pretty good shorthand of the IPA’s hard-won learning over the last five decades. An advertiser with long horizons. Budgets that cut through, dedicated largely to brand. An idea that keeps on giving. Humour as a hack. An endline that has crossed over into popular culture. But few advertisers have also been more dedicated to proving not just that their advertising works, but how. There’s a generosity of spirit in doing so that mirrors the generosity of spirit in the ads themselves, and they rightly join an illustrious roll call of previous winners.”

All winning case studies are available to download from the IPA website or from WARC. The IPA Effectiveness Awards are sponsored by Analytic Partners, System1, Thinkbox and WARC.

2026 IPA Effectiveness Awards winners:

Special Prizes:

Grand Prix:

• Currys by AMV BBDO and Spark Foundry: The Superpower In-store

Effectiveness Agency of the Year:

• PHD Media

Effectiveness Company of the Year:

• Omnicom

The Broadbent Prize for Best Dedication to Effectiveness:

• Specsavers

Best Not-For-Profit:

• Alzheimer's Society by Medialab, New Commercial Arts and Alzheimer's Society: How a 'cultural multiplier' generated the short and really long-term income to fight dementia

Best Small Budget:

• NHS Blood and Transplant by VML: Waiting to live: Shining a light on children waiting for a transplant

The President’s Prize for Creative Effectiveness:

• Andrex by Omnicom and PHD Media: Getting Andrex back on a roll: How confronting toilet truths unlocked a bold new chapter of growth

The Channon Prize for Best New Learning:

• Nationwide by Mother and Wavemaker London: Marketing and finance: Pioneering a new kind of alliance

Gold Awards:

Global Market:

• Specsavers by MG OMD and Specsavers Creative: The serious value of humour

Not-For-Profit:

• Alzheimer's Society by Medialab, New Commercial Arts and Alzheimer's Society: How a 'cultural multiplier' generated the short and really long-term income to fight dementia

Single Market:

• Andrex by Omnicom and PHD Media: Getting Andrex back on a roll: How confronting toilet truths unlocked a bold new chapter of growth
• Currys by AMV BBDO and Spark Foundry: The Superpower In-store
• Lurpak by Wieden+Kennedy London and Arla: How Lurpak has led a category for 19 years, by thinking outside it
• Nationwide by Mother and Wavemaker London: Marketing and finance: Pioneering a new kind of alliance

Silver Awards:

Not-For-Profit:

• NHS Blood and Transplant by VML: Waiting to live: Shining a light on children waiting for a transplant

Single Market:

• AJ Bell by Pablo London: Clear as a bell: The stupidly simple strategy that made AJ Bell the talk of the town
• Great Western Railway by adam&eve\TBWA: Consistency starts here: How committing to a single campaign idea paid back for Great Western Railway
• Volkswagen by adam&eve\TBWA and PHD Media: The power of people like you: How popularity paid back for Volkswagen

Bronze Awards:

Not-For-Profit:

• Capita, for the British Army by Droga5 and EssenceMediacom: You Belong Here: Sharpening belonging for the next generation of Army recruits

Regional Market:

• Škoda by AMV BBDO and PHD Media: Škoda Elroq: From complexity to confidence – how Škoda unlocked Europe’s EV market

Single Market:

• Admiral by McCann Bristol: Ahoy Admouth! The power of a fluent world to create emotional connections
• Confused.com by Leo UK and Zenith UK: From chasing efficiencies to growing efficiently: How Confused.com made the whole system work harder
• easyJet by VCCP, T&P London and Kepler: Not a campaign, a creative system for the modern era of algorithmic media
• Gousto by the7stars: Gousto rewrote the rules of DTC growth by building a brand before chasing performance
• Jaffa Cakes by adam&eve\TBWA and MG OMD: How a modern brand-building strategy reignited an age-old debate about Jaffa Cakes
• Madrî Excepcional by Ogilvy UK and Carat: “You don’t need history, to make history”: How Madrí Excepcional became a £1bn brand in 5 years
• SMARTY mobile by The Gate London, Zenith UK and VodafoneThree: Less Malarkey. More SMARTY: How a flanker brand reignited growth in a shrinking market
• Vitality by VCCP: Life, not death