Having read Physics at , Les took an M. Phil. in Artificial Intelligence at . His research there focussed on the use of computer models to study the way human beings process language. In 1987, he joined the Account Planning department at BMP, where he turned his modelling skills to the problem of measuring the effects of advertising. He is currently Head of Effectiveness at adam&eve DDB, and runs DDB Matrix, the network’s econometrics consultancy.
Over the years, Les has worked for companies such as AXA, Barclays, Diageo, Heinz, John Lewis, Nestlé, Phillips, Unilever, Virgin, and Volkswagen. He has also played an important part in establishing the agency’s reputation for effectiveness, having won more IPA Advertising Effectiveness Awards than anyone else in the history of the competition.
Since 2001, he has served on the IPA’s Value of Creativity Group, helping to promote effectiveness and evaluation in the wider marketing community, and in 2005 he was Convenor of Judges for the IPA Awards. In 2004 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the IPA, in recognition of his services to the advertising industry, and in 2014 he was awarded The President’s Medal, the highest honour the IPA can bestow.
In 2007, Les Binet and Peter Field published Marketing in the Era of Accountability, a study of the factors that influence marketing effectiveness, which The Guardian as “compulsory reading for all serious scholars of marketing”.
Their new report “The Long and the Short of It” looks at the strategies that drive effectiveness over the long and short term. Writing about it in Marketing Week, Richard Madden wrote: “If you’re involved with marketing communications, and you’re serious about what you do, run to your computer and download a copy of it now.”
Les is a member of the Senior Advisory Board of the Journal of Advertising Research and the Global Advisory Board of Wharton Business School’s “Future of Advertising” project. He is also a regular columnist for Admap magazine.