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.

advertising matters 15.03.19

/ March 18th 2019
Advertising Matters

Welcome Philippa! 

Yesterday we announced that Philippa Brown, CEO, Omnicom Media Group UK, is to be our new AA Chair, while outgoing chair, James Murphy will move into a newly-created role as UK advertising’s first Exports Champion, leading the work being done to grow exports of advertising services.

Philippa joins for a three-year term at an important moment for the AA as we step up work around addressing the decline of public trust in advertising; deal with a range of regulatory issues for the industry including the new HFSS advertising consultation; and represent the industry during the ongoing Brexit process and progresses its work to support the Government’s Industrial Strategy.

Our Chief Executive Stephen Woodford said: “Philippa is one of the most highly-regarded agency leaders in the UK and we are delighted she’s agreed to become our new AA Chair. She brings unrivalled management experience from both the agency and publishing worlds and I am looking forward to working closely with her, Keith and our AA Board and Council as we implement our plan to address the decline in public trust in advertising.”

Philippa Brown commented: “I’m honoured to be chairing the AA at such an important time. The association is working at the heart of many of our industry’s biggest issues – public trust, helping businesses grow across the UK and internationally and promoting the rights of companies to advertise both freely and responsibly.”

The news was featured in outlets including Campaign and Mediatel Newsline and the full story can be found on our website here.

We’ve got the world ad our feet

UK advertising’s first ever Export Month has continued this week with a strong British presence at South by Southwest (SXSW) and a production industry trade mission heading out to Japan. Export Month has been organised by our Promote UK group to further position the UK as the global hub for advertising. As such, a delegation headed out to SXSW, the Texas creative festival, which began last weekend.

As part of the mission, the UK creative industries took over the British Music Embassy in Austin last Saturday for a series of talks and debates on creativity, advertising and trust.

There was a key session on the recent research on trust from advertising’s think tank Credos and discussion of how the situation compares with the US. Speakers throughout the day included Google’s Head of Creative Industry Relations Ant Hill; Steven Bartlett, the high-profile investor; Caroline Davison, Managing Partner at Elvis; and Emily Goldhill, Strategy Lead at Livity. Read more here.

Meanwhile, over in Tokyo, our colleagues at the APA led a trade mission of over 20 companies for the Tokyo London Advertising Forum. So far, they have met leading Japanese production company AIO Pro, visited one of Tokyo’s biggest advertising agencies Hakuhodo and met some of Japan’s best creative directors at the British Embassy. The biggest event of the trip so far has been Euro Live in Shibuya, Tokyo. Here, APA members presented to over 160 Japanese creatives to show them the best of what British talent can offer.

Attention now moves to Advertising Week Europe and our Leadership Breakfast on Tuesday where we’ll be launching our Advertising Exports Report 2019 and delving deeper into the subject with an expert industry panel.

It’s May way or the highway

If Brexit were a novel it sometimes seems that it would be deemed too outlandish to be taken seriously. Such are the plot twists and turns, it seems like a real life political version of ‘And Then There Were None’. Perhaps we’ll all end up as stars in the finale to the Brexit deal franchise – ‘And Then There Were None But May’s’.

So it was this week that, following a series of votes, we appear left with two choices as a country: a lengthy delay to Brexit and some kind of re-bargaining; or a short delay and the Prime Minister’s existing Withdrawal Agreement. This came about after MPs rejected Mrs May’s withdrawal agreement for a second time by 149 votes on Tuesday; rejected a no-deal Brexit on Wednesday (in a non-binding vote); and on Thursday voted to seek an extension to Article 50.

While we are still legislated for an exit on March 29 and we can expect MV3 (Meaningful Vote 3) on the May Deal to take place next week, it is uncertain if the UK will actually leave the EU on the planned date. Nevertheless, the prospect of a lengthy delay to Brexit – or even no Brexit at all – may be enough to push the more reluctant members of the Prime Minister’s party and the DUP to support the deal. This is coupled with potential support from Labour members representing Leave-voting areas. Whatever happens over the coming days and weeks, I have a feeling we ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

AD OF THE WEEK

You’ve made it this far – why not treat yourself to watching our ad of the week?