Peter Field
Short-term metrics now dominate marketing decisions. The channels easiest to measure – performance advertising, digital activation, last-click attribution – are typically the ones least effective at building pricing power and long-term profit. Organisations are optimising their way to brand decline while the data required to argue otherwise sits unused.
Peter Field is the marketing effectiveness consultant whose analysis of the IPA Effectiveness Databank – the largest independently verified body of advertising effectiveness evidence – established that long-term brand investment, not short-term activation, is the primary driver of sustained profit and pricing power.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Peter Field
- His IPA Effectiveness Databank analysis – spanning over 1,000 campaigns, 80+ categories, and 30 years – gives senior marketers an empirical base for budget decisions that no internal dataset can match in scale or authority.
- The 60:40 principle he co-established with Les Binet is now the dominant reference point for CMO-level investment decisions globally; organisations use it to resist short-term pressure from finance and hold the case for brand building with the board.
- His 2019 Crisis in Creative Effectiveness report – showing that creatively-awarded campaigns had lost their effectiveness advantage entirely due to short-termism – gives marketing leaders the evidence to argue for sustained creative investment rather than disposable activation.
- The Creative Effectiveness Ladder, co-developed with James Hurman for Cannes Lions and WARC, gives organisations a practical evaluation tool for assessing the long-term ambition of creative work before it runs.
- His extension of effectiveness principles into B2B – The Five Principles of Growth in B2B Marketing – fills an empirical gap that most B2B marketing leaders have had to navigate without equivalent guidance.
Biography highlights
- Cambridge graduate; 15 years as a strategic planner at advertising agencies including BMP (later part of the DDB network)
- Co-author with Les Binet of the IPA Effectiveness Databank series: Marketing in the Era of Accountability (2007), The Long & The Short of It (2013), Media in Focus (2017), Effectiveness in Context (2018)
- Author of The Crisis in Creative Effectiveness (IPA, 2019) – analysing 24 years of data on the declining relationship between creative awards and business outcomes
- Co-author with James Hurman of The Effectiveness Code (Cannes Lions/WARC, 2020), which produced the Creative Effectiveness Ladder framework
- Honorary Fellow of the UK Institute of Practitioners in Advertising
- Regular keynote speaker at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, IPA EffWeek, and WARC Sessions
Biography
Marketing measurement has a structural flaw: the channels easiest to measure in real time are the ones least suited to building durable growth. Peter Field has spent 25 years making that argument with evidence – the IPA Effectiveness Databank, a repository of independently verified advertising effectiveness data spanning more than three decades.
With Les Binet, Field co-authored the series of IPA Effectiveness Databank reports that set the empirical terms for decisions about budget allocation, media strategy, and creative investment. The Long and the Short of It (2013) established the 60:40 principle: most organisations systematically under-invest in brand building relative to short-term activation. Long-term emotional campaigns, the data showed, generate roughly double the profit of short-term approaches. The series has been cited in over 70 international academic publications and textbooks.
Field’s solo research extended these findings into the relationship between creativity and effectiveness. The Crisis in Creative Effectiveness (IPA, 2019) revealed that creatively-awarded campaigns had become no more effective than non-awarded ones – the first time in 24 years of data – driven by the industry’s shift toward short-term activation work. His co-authored Creative Effectiveness Ladder, developed with James Hurman for Cannes Lions and WARC, provides a practical framework for evaluating the long-term ambition of creative work before it runs.
A Cambridge graduate and former strategic planner at BMP, Field is an Honorary Fellow of the UK Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. His research has been presented at Cannes Lions, WARC Sessions, and IPA EffWeek, and has shaped how CMOs, CFOs, and boards across the world evaluate the returns on marketing investment.
Key speaking topics
- Marketing effectiveness and budget allocation
- Long-term brand building vs. short-term sales activation
- Creative effectiveness and the business case for creativity
- Measurement, metrics, and the limits of digital attribution
- Brand growth and pricing power
- B2B marketing effectiveness
- Evidence-based commercial strategy
Ideal for
- CMOs and senior marketing leaders under short-term commercial pressure from CFOs or boards
- CFOs and CEOs seeking an empirical framework for evaluating marketing investment decisions
- Brand and creative strategy leads making the case for long-term creative ambition internally
- B2B marketing directors who have lacked an effectiveness evidence base equivalent to B2C
Audience outcomes
- A clear, evidence-based framework for allocating budget between brand building and short-term activation – grounded in 30+ years of campaign data
- A working understanding of why short-term digital metrics can systematically mislead commercial decision-making
- The analytical language to present the commercial case for brand investment to a CFO or board
- Practical criteria for evaluating whether a creative strategy is built for long-term effectiveness or short-term efficiency
- Awareness of how the Five Principles of Growth in B2B Marketing translate consumer effectiveness evidence into B2B strategy