The Advertising Association promotes the role and rights of responsible advertising and its value to people, society, businesses and the economy. We represent UK advertisers, agencies, media owners and tech companies on behalf of the entire industry, acting as the connection between industry professionals and the politicians and policy-makers.

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The Advertising Association focuses on major industry and policy areas that have huge ramifications on UK advertising. This section contains our work around public health, gambling advertising, data and e-privacy, trust, the digital economy and more.

Credos is the advertising industry’s independent think tank. It produces research, evidence and reports into the impact and effectiveness of and public and political response to advertising on behalf of UK advertisers in order to enable the industry to make informed decisions.

Front Foot is our industry’s member network of over 90 businesses across UK advertising. It aims to promote the role of responsible advertising and its value to people, society and the economy through a coalition of senior leaders from advertisers, agencies and media owners.

We run a number of events throughout the year, from our annual LEAD summit to the Media Business Course and regular breakfast briefings for our members. We are also the official UK representative for the world’s biggest festival of creativity – Cannes Lions.

The Advertising Association at Cannes: Day Two

/ June 20th 2018
UK Industrial Strategy

The Advertising Association (AA) is, as ever, representing the interests of the UK advertising and creative industries at Cannes, partnering with some of the biggest brands in the world to showcase UK talent and innovation within the industry.

The AA and Microsoft got together yesterday over a Cannes terrace breakfast with friends and members including ISBA, the IAB, The Lighthouse Company, Amazon and Wavemaker, to name but a few. The topics ranged from how would you describe what you do in advertising to your granny, to the importance of creative hubs and ensuring the right talent both globally and domestically are welcomed and nurtured within our industry.  The group also discussed that marketing needs to be better understood and better valued as a professional services business here in the UK, that we need to make diversity practical and real and that as an industry, we need to be reaching out to school leavers with apprentice schemes and not simply focusing on graduates.

Perhaps there’s a ‘UK Advertising’s Big Day’ on the horizon where all parts of our industry collaborate to create a fantastic showcase for school leavers as to why they should come and join one of the most exciting, vibrant and creative hubs in the world – UK Advertising. Watch this space!

Also on the AA agenda: Working with The Bridge and News UK to discuss how to promote trust in advertising among increasingly media-savvy consumers. Follow our Chief Executive Stephen Woodford or the AA itself on Twitter to stay abreast of all the ad-land news coming out of Cannes!