Advertising Matters 03.05.19

AA WARC in the park

On Tuesday we released our latest AA/WARC Expenditure Report for FY 2018. The report is the only one to collect advertising spend data from across the entire media landscape. Figures show that UK adspend rose 6.3% year-on-year to reach £23.6bn in 2018. This marks the ninth consecutive year of market growth and highest annual total since monitoring began in 1982!

Other topline figures within the report show that he forecast for 2019 has been upgraded to £24.7bn, equivalent to 4.8% growth, and the UK’s ad market is expected to grow a further 5.5% in 2020.

Our Chief Executive, Stephen Woodford, commented: “These figures demonstrate, once again, the strength and resilience of the UK advertising industry during a time of political and economic uncertainty in the UK – they are a testament to the world-class capabilities of the third of a million people working in advertising and marketing services across the UK. With every pound spent on advertising generating six pounds of GDP, a strong advertising industry is a key pillar of a strong economy.”

The figures were covered widely in the media, including in Campaign, City A.M., Mediatel Newsline, Little Black Book and Decision Marketing. You can read the full release on our website here.

UK (Young) Lions: Unleashed!

As the UK rep for Cannes Lions, we recently launched a competition to find a team of under-30s UK advertising professionals to compete in its Young Lions competitions against other young creative talent from around the world in June.

Over 300 teams of two people each signed up to our UK competition, and after reviewing some fantastic work, we have now selected the twelve under-30s UK advertising professionals who will be heading to Cannes to do just that!

The Young Lions competitions run as part of the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity and have a global reputation as the place where creative talent aged under 30 compete to be recognised as the world’s best.

All of our activity in Cannes is also supported by our partners Channel 4, Clear Channel, the Department for International Trade, Framestore, London & Partners, M&C Saatchi and Newsworks.

To find out who won which category, head over to the full release on our website here.

Outsmarting the competition

This week Outsmart has launched its ‘Get Smart, Outside’ campaign to work in partnership with public authorities to promote healthy living campaigns in their areas. Outsmart members have pledged to provide unsold advertising space to the value of up to £15m annually to support the campaign. A new website containing further details about the campaign has also been launched at www.getsmartoutside.org.uk. If you would like to help spread the word, please feel free to follow @GetSmartOutside and retweet any posts.

Our marathon man

Our Chief Executive, Stephen, and his son Will, ran the London Marathon on Sunday for Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), the world’s leading charity searching for a cure for Type 1 Diabetes.

I’m sure you will all join us in congratulating the both of them, for not only completing it, but doing so in under five hours!

What an achievement!

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