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.

Dear Secretary of State…

/ December 28th 2017
Data and E-Privacy News

This week we wrote to the Secretary of State in response to the paper from the Department for Exiting the European Union published on 24 August on “The Exchange and Protection of Personal Data” following the UK’s exit from the EU.

On behalf of our members, we strongly support of the proposal which advocates a new deal that would build on existing arrangements in the adequacy status model but recognise the UK’s deep alignment with the EU on data protection policy.

This deal should allow the Information Commissioner’s Office to continue to participate fully in the European Data Protection Board, including allowing the ICO full voting rights, and allow UK consumers access to the one-stop shop mechanism under the General Data Protection Regulation.

Striking such a deal would be a huge gain for the entire UK economy but in particular for our world-beating marketing and advertising sector, which relies on being able to exchange personal data freely across EU borders.

The UK will be in a unique position upon Brexit because the GDPR will be applicable in the UK from 25 May 2018. No other third country will be in this position, and the Government should capitalise on this to ensure minimal disruption for consumers and businesses operating across EU borders.

Advertising and marketing are at the heart of the UK economy and play a vital role in driving economic growth. Annual UK exports of advertising services are worth £4.3 billion and every £1 spent on advertising returns £6 to the economy, resulting in £120 billion to UK GDP.