Britain's Institute of Practitioners in Advertising launches Shared Beliefs, which for the first time explains the industry's core principles.

The culmination of a three year qualitative project into what makes good and great advertising and marketing communications, Shared Beliefs is a summation of the concept that there are twenty core principles applying to all communication industry disciplines: 

 1. Start with an end in mind

2. Ultimately the aim is for somebody to do something

3. A brand isn't a brand without advertising

4. It's not what you spend but what you get that counts

5. Creative thinking is the lifeblood of advertising

6. It ain't (just) what you say but the way that you say it

7. The more people get into your advertising the more they get out of it

8. Identify a target response not just a target audience

9. Media should be at the centre not at the end

10. Find a truth and make it matter

11. The best advertising has a single-minded idea

12. Be different

13. You don't have to be in the centre break of "Coronation Street"*

14. Consistency is a key to success

15. Keep your finger on the pulse

16. Don't patronise your audience

17. Branding comes from the whole of the idea not just the logo

18. "It's on brief" and "I like it" doesn't mean you've got good advertising

19. The idea is only the start of the execution

20. All great advertising has a great client.

* It means the ad does not have to appear in the most popular TV programs

IPA director general Hamish Pringle : "By publishing Shared Beliefs, we've distilled the wisdom of 35 of the most experienced and successful people in our business over a 50 year period into one publication. We hope that it will inspire all brand owners and their architects and remind everyone why we are so passionate about the business."

Dave Trott of Walsh Trott Chick Smith puts it more pithily: "This is nothing we don't all know. But it's certainly something a lot of us have forgotten."