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.

A A A

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.

Export case study: Agency Inc

/ March 19th 2020
Exports and International Trade

Business: Agency Inc

Client: ABB Food & Beverage

Agency Inc is a strategic B2B marketing agency with a clear purpose – to make the complicated simple.

Their international clients face complex structures and multiple decision-makers, resulting in an amalgamation of different approaches, products and perspectives. In short, things get complicated. But Agency Inc have developed a streamlined way to unlock audience insight, and from that, to develop simple customer-centric propositions that form the foundation for integrated marketing strategies. 

This approach has transformed how their clients work. Heavy tech and industry behemoths, familiar with product-focused messages, now look for relevant ways of engaging individuals across an extended customer journey.

Take Agency Inc’s work with ABB’s Food and Beverage (F&B) segment. As a pioneering technology leader, working mainly in utility, industry, transportation and infrastructure, ABB were not perceived as a specialist amongst Food and Beverage manufacturers.

Agency Inc developed ‘Talk to us’, a campaign which flipped ABB’s focus from pushing products to addressing customer needs, from vendor to consultative partner. 

Based on research which highlighted the primary challenges faced by manufacturing customers, Agency Inc’s global campaign set a simple creative, narrative and content direction, demonstrating ABB’s capabilities in helping customers to overcome such challenges.

The campaign was launched across multiple digital, social and face-to-face touchpoints with outstanding results – driving double digit annual growth for the F&B segment across the business, and earning recognition through a series of marketing awards in 2019.

The success of the campaign and the working relationship between ABB and Agency Inc has also helped to change the way marketing communications campaigns are planned and implemented across the entire business, enshrining a strategic, content-driven marketing philosophy. Agency Inc now works with ABB across every major business division, and across every territory.

This case study is featured in our UK Advertising Exports Report, which you can download here.