News

Chris Whitson, Planning Partner at Stephens Francis Whitson, has taken over as Chairman of the IPA’s Direct marketing Futures Group and has wasted no time in setting the new agenda.

Chris has taken over the role form Proximity London’s Chief Executive Amanda Phillips, who has spent three long and successful years championing and representing the sector on behalf of the IPA members. As well as seeing through the Group’s current projects, including continuing t fully support the IPA’s Summer School, there are a number of areas Chris would also like to address. These include:

• Removing ‘Futures’ from the name of the Group in order to better represent the issues IPA member agencies are facing within the current marketplace, and not just in the future.

• Revisiting the IPA’s DM Charter, produced back in 2004, to create an updated document that reflects best practice in today’s current communications environment.

• Tracking the infamous ‘opt in vs. opt out’ debate in a more positive way, by fully understanding the reasons why consumers are opting out, and by exploring ways in which consumers want to engage and respond to brands now and in the future.

• Recognising that direct marketers must embrace and master a much wider set of skills that ever before, especially as a result of the exploration of various digital channels, and understanding the impact that this is having on the direct marketing sector.

• Says Chris, “It’s an extremely exciting time to be working in our industry and I’m horned to be taking the Chair of the IPA Direct Marketing Group slap bang in the middle of it.”

Chris Whitson’s biography

An agency account planner from his very first job. Chris has worked above, below and through the line. He started out at Faulds and Navigator in Edinburgh before making the journey to London and Bated UK. He was Deputy Planning Director at TBWA/GGT before moving to Clark Mckay and Warpole where, as Planning Director, he set up the planning department from scratch and built a highly respected department where all the various planning disciplines including brand planning, data planning and media planning, came together as one unit. Chris co-founded Stephens Francis Whitson with Ben Stephens and Neil Francis in January 2005.