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.

advertising matters 4.1.19

/ January 4th 2019
Advertising Matters

Viva la Resolution!

It’s only right that we make some New Year’s resolutions in what promises to be an extremely eventful 12 months for our industry and the wider country. So, here’s five as 2019 gets underway…

Get the best Brexit deal for British advertising – The B-word is sure to dominate news and politics over 2019 and we are determined to continue lobbying hard. There are three essentials the government must negotiate as a bottom line for the advertising industry: continued cross-border data flows; plurality of broadcasting channels to carry cross-border advertising; and a flexible migration system that allows continued access to the best talent.

Take action to address declining public trust in advertising – With the leadership of our new President, Keith Weed and Front Foot Chair Mark Evans, as well as our Trust working group, we are determined to take positive action to restore trust in our industry and put us in a stronger footing for the future. Our Chief Executive explains why here.

Help grow exports of British advertising services – Our Promote UK group is going from strength-to-strength and all businesses in our sector with export ambitions are welcome to join us. We are well on our way with our plans as UK representative for Cannes Lions to promote the UK as the pre-eminent international hub for advertising. We’ll also be at SXSW and the Shanghai International Advertising Festival too, with lots more Promote UK activity planned.

Boost SME uptake of advertising services – Our AAccelerate pilot SME projects in Scotland and the West Midlands are continuing apace as part of our strategy to support the Government’s Industrial Strategy and drive growth across the nations and regions of the UK.

Build on the timeTo movement – with our partners, NABS and WACL – to eradicate sexual harassment from our industry – Over 170 companies have signed up to the new code so far. It is vital we keep up this momentum. Read more on why it’s important here.

All roads lead to LEAD

For the next few weeks the AA team will be busy gearing up for our annual LEAD summit  which will bring together over 300 delegates from agencies, brands and media to discuss the key issues in our industry for 2019, all under the theme of Trust, Trade & Transformation.

We have secured speaking appearances from an excellent cross-section of industry and parliamentary figures, including Baroness Fairhead, Tom Watson MP, Keith Weed, Karen Blackett and Mark Evans, who will be discussing the key issues for advertising over what promises to be a crucial and unprecedented year of change for the UK.

It all happens on Wednesday 30th January 2018, from 08.30-13.00 at Kings Place, Kings Cross, London. Tickets are selling fast – make sure you book yours! Register here.

 

Your health is your wealth

As we all make all those promises to be healthy and wave goodbye to our various vices, a couple of this week’s campaigns caught our AA ad eye.

The British Heart Foundation has launched its #dechox campaign which will ask fundraisers to give up chocolate for February in aid of the charity. The campaign has launched with a light-hearted advert looking at the an-Twix of chocolate bars when they get packed off for a trip in the sun for a month. Read more in The Drum here. Chocs away!

In other news, Public Health England has also launched this year’s edition of its annual Change4Life campaign. This year’s aim is to encourage children to consume less sugar. This is despite the average person already consuming 20 grams less sugar per day compared to 20 years ago (90g in 2001/2 to 70g in 2016/17. Read more on the new campaign here.

 

Events

UK advertising needs you!

As the UK representative of Cannes Lions, we and our partners Channel 4, Clear Channel UK, Framestore, M&C Saatchi and the Department of International Trade are holding a free event on the afternoon of 30 January following our annual summit, LEAD, for 16-24s to introduce them to a career in advertising, including a speed mentoring session to learn from the best in the business. Know anyone who should attend? – book here.
You’ve read the whole thing! You deserve a treat. It’s this.

 

Ad of the week

Client: British Army
Agency: Karmarama