This March, the Advertising Association – alongside partners from its Promote UK group, including the Department for International Trade (DIT) and the IPA – is coordinating the biggest effort yet to showcase UK advertising services to international audiences. Dubbed Export Month, it will feature a wide programme of activity with the aim of promoting the UK’s advertising services to key markets around the world.

Landmark moments already planned for the month-long celebration include:

• The first annual UK Ad Exports Report – With research from the advertising industry’s think tank Credos, the report will track the performance of the UK advertising industry and will highlight the latest figures for exports of ad services – an area where the country has traditionally performed strongly. The report will measure the country’s recent exports performance; feature case studies from advertising services exporters; and gauge industry sentiment as the UK leaves the EU.
• Shanghai International Advertising Festival (SHIAF) – Taking place from 4-8 March, SHIAF will feature a unique forum to highlight UK advertising expertise to Chinese brand marketers. A delegation of UK agencies and production companies, led by Promote UK chair, Janet Hull and Advertising Association Chief Executive, Stephen Woodford, will be heading to Shanghai to meet Chinese agency peers and brands and explore new opportunities to grow links and business. In a further show of the UK advertising presence, the festival, now in its second year, will include an increased number of judges, entries and speakers from the UK across the week.
• South by Southwest (SXSW) – For the first time, UK advertising will have its own day at SXSW, taking over the British Music Embassy on 8 March in activity backed by DIT. Curated by the IPA as part of its Promote UK work, a variety of UK businesses will be presenting to festival-goers on their areas of creative expertise. Companies taking part include Hey Human, System One, Karmarama, Crowd, and Iris. The ensuing trade show on 10-13 March will include demonstrations of global campaigns that UK businesses have created for clients from around the world.
• APA’s Tokyo-London Forum 2019 – Supported by DIT, the Advertising Producers Association (APA) will be taking a delegation of companies to Japan, the third largest advertising marketing in the world between March 11-14. Around 40 companies from the industry will meet with senior leaders from Japanese agencies and showcase skills in advertising production and post-production.
• Advertising Week Europe – This year, Europe’s key gathering of marketing and communications leaders will be taking place from 18-21 March, just over a week before the scheduled date for Brexit. The Advertising Association, in partnership with DIT and the IPA, will be hosting one of the week’s highly anticipated Breakfast Leadership events at Ronnie Scott’s on 19 March. The topic of discussion will be how UK advertising can work together to build exports in a post-Brexit landscape, support the UK Government’s soft power strategy and contribute to the wider trade agenda.
• Cannes Lions UK competition – The annual search for UK advertising professionals to represent the country in the global Young Lions finals in Cannes this summer will launch in March. Backed by the Advertising Association, Department for International Trade, Channel 4, Clear Channel, Framestore and M&C Saatchi, the competition will identify UK’s rising creative talent to do battle on the world stage.
• Export Accelerator – Recruitment of test users will open in March for a new online resource funded by the Department for International Trade to help UK advertising businesses create their export strategy. It will be a one stop shop with advice on how to do more effective business overseas as well as listing upcoming opportunities to attend overseas markets and missions.
• Celebrating excellence in exports – All UK advertising businesses will be encouraged to share their exporting stories across the industry and to contribute to Export Month with their own activities.
• Promote UK Year One celebrations – Export Month’s end date coincides with the first-year anniversary of the formation of Promote UK, a group designed to support the UK advertising industry’s export ambitions. The month will culminate in a celebration of the group’s achievements in its first twelve months.

Stephen Woodford, Chief Executive, Advertising Association, said: “The UK stands at an important crossroads in its relationship with the EU and the rest of the world. Export Month will act as a celebration of what we do best in UK advertising – a multi-national workforce servicing a global client-base via a winning combination of creativity, innovation and technological expertise. This programme will showcase these strengths like never before and we welcome all those businesses with export ambitions to join in.”

Janet Hull, Chair of the Promote UK group and Director of Marketing Strategy, IPA, commented: “A tremendous amount of effort, from industry and from UK government, is coming together in March as we showcase UK advertising services around the world. I’m hugely proud of the work being done and believe that this is just the start of what we can all do as an industry to build a strong trading future for our creative industries.”

All businesses interested in taking part in Export Month can contact Promote UK via the Advertising Association and join in on social channels using #CreativityIsGREAT.

The UK is an advertising exporting powerhouse, with British advertising services worth £5.8 billion according to the last available figures for 2016. The figures showed an increase of 35% and the UK’s balance of payments surplus for advertising was the biggest in Europe – £2.9 billion. The UK also wins more Cannes Lions advertising awards per capita than any other country, with over 1,500 won since 2005 and leads the way for the best creative and most effective advertising campaigns.

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timeTo, an alliance between the Advertising Association (AA), marketing industry charity NABS and networking group Women in Advertising and Communications, London (WACL), has been launched to investigate issues of sexual harassment in the advertising and marketing communications industry and come up with positive steps to stamp it out.

timeTo officially launched on March 12th 2018. Client body, the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA), and ad industry trade body, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, have both already given it their full support. The IPM, which is a member of the AA, has also pledged its support and is asking IPM members to contribute to an industry-wide survey being carried out by marketing industry think-tank, Credos.

The news release announcing the launch of timeTo can be found via this link

John Sylvester, Chairman of the IPM, says: “The IPM is contacting all our members and asking them to respond to Credos’ request for information, as have other industry bodies. It’s important that we hear from as many people as possible, so we can develop best practice to tackle the issue in a positive way.”

Stephen Woodford, CEO of the Advertising Association, comments: “Our industry, like many others in the UK and around the world, is going through a critical reset in terms of behaviour change. The Advertising Association exists to promote the role, rights and responsibilities of advertising and timeTo is about being clear about the behaviour standard expected of all people who work in advertising. This must happen to ensure our industry, which reflects and shapes the world around us, continues to be an economic and social force for good in the years ahead.”

The Credos study, led by Karen Fraser MBE, Director of Credos and Strategy Director of the Advertising Association, aims to establish the current level of sexual harassment across the industry and to provide data for future tracking of change. timeTo will also use information collected through the survey to produce a best-practice Code of Behaviour for all companies to implement as a minimum.

timeTo builds on the global #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, but with a recognition that all parts of the advertising industry are affected – all sexualities and genders as well as all agencies, marketers and media owners – and that, by taking action together, the industry will be better placed to make positive change to stamp out sexual harassment.

The Advertising Association promotes the role, rights and responsibilities of advertising and its impact on individuals, the economy and society and is a key stakeholder in the system of independent self-regulation which governs the UK advertising and marketing industry.

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The Advertising Association is today launching a new report, Advertising Pays: World Class Talent, World Class Advertising, and a campaign aimed at protecting the advertising and marketing industry post-Brexit by championing access to global talent and to celebrate the immense contribution of international talent to the UK.

The new report, in partnership with LinkedIn, reveals that a diverse international workforce is central to the UK’s position as a global advertising and marketing hub.

Analysis from a pool of 328,000 LinkedIn members who work in advertising and marketing in the UK gives detailed insights into how international talent plays a pivotal role in the UK’s creative success. It also demonstrates that the UK is a key source of talent for other advertising hubs worldwide.

With widespread uncertainty around talent moving to and from the UK post-Brexit, the Advertising Association is warning that the UK’s creative crown is in jeopardy.

The proportion of the current advertising and marketing workforce in London that has migrated here from abroad in the last 12 months is three times higher than the corresponding figure in New York; it is also higher than in Paris and Amsterdam. More than a third of this talent comes from within the EU, with many others arriving from the United States and Australia.

Unsurprisingly, London is a hub for advertising and marketing talent – in fact 6% of LinkedIn members in the London area work in the industry. However, despite London’s global reputation for advertising, more than half (57%) of the industry’s UK workforce is based outside of the capital. Manchester is the largest of the city hubs.

The UK also supplies a huge amount of talent to other international advertising hubs. The UK is the number one source of international advertising and marketing talent in New York, Paris and Amsterdam and has provided more than a third of recent migrants to Sydney’s advertising sector.

James Murphy, CEO of adam&eveDDB and Chairman of the Advertising Association says: “The UK ad industry is a world-leader because we’re open to the world. It will be catastrophic to the long-term success of the sector if we can’t access the right talent quickly and easily. Global brands want to work with the best talent and the UK has it. As an industry that delivers £120 billion of GDP per year for the country, anything that knocks advertising will dent the economy.”

Josh Graff, UK Country Manager at LinkedIn, adds: “I have experienced first-hand what makes the UK such a creative powerhouse – the people. We’re a wonderfully diverse and international workforce that enables brands and their agencies to create campaigns which resonate across international, cultural and socio-economic boundaries. I hope that this report, informed by LinkedIn‟s powerful data, can not only help employers make better decisions about their talent pipelines but that it will also inform policy makers and educators on what’s required to ensure the sector continues to thrive.”

Created by the Association in collaboration with agency adam&eveDDB, the ‘A Great Advert for Britain’ campaign is based on photo portraits of individuals from overseas working in advertising, with a message that they are ‘A Great Advert for Britain’.

The ads will appear on posters, online display advertising and in the press, in media space donated by media owners in support of the campaign.

Stephen Woodford, CEO of the Advertising Association says: “Our new report, informed by LinkedIn’s powerful dataset, highlights immigration as the most important area for Government support to maintain the UK’s position as the world’s leading global advertising hub and drive growth domestically. Our new campaign, ‘A Great Advert for Britain’, brings this important issue to life. We have been working closely with the relevant Government departments on measures to safeguard and promote UK advertising internationally, as well as stimulate further growth in the regions among SMEs. We will continue to make the case to Government for funding and support in these areas.”

Alongside its campaign, the Advertising Association has met with the Migration Advisory Committee, an influential non-departmental advisory body, to share the report findings to help inform plans for access to talent post-Brexit.

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Karen Bradley, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, has told the UK’s advertising and marketing communications professionals that the current Government considers its work to be one of the UK’s “major success stories” and also “vital for the success of the UK.” Speaking at the Advertising Association’s LEAD 2017 conference on January 26th 2017, she reassured her audience that advertising and marketing has the full support of the Government and encouraged the industry to make its voice heard in the process of planning Britain’s exit from the European Union.

Bradley went on: “I want to be clear that the government has never seen you as peripheral. Our aim is to forge new relationships while remaining open to international talent. But I’m conscious that UK advertising feels that certain aspects of EU wide co-operation have been helpful but also that certain legislation is harmful. I want to hear from you on the opportunities and limitations of success as we approach our negotiations. And as we engage in negotiations with the EU, the advertising industry can help us make the case by providing us with data and knowledge.”

Carey Trevill, Managing Director of the Institute of Promotional Marketing, was in the audience. She says: “We heard a speech designed to calm and support the marketers in the room. Bradley spelt out clearly the benefits of British advertising and the fact that the special position we hold as ‘best in the world’ positions the U.K. advertising and marketing industry as critical to a successful Brexit.”

According to the latest figures from the influential AA/WARC Advertising Expenditure survey, marketing spend grew 4.2% in the third quarter of 2016, following the UK’s vote to leave the EU. Recent research by advertising think tank Credos and consultants Deloitte shows that advertising contributed £120.4 billion to GDP in 2015, and supports over 550,000 jobs.

The Advertising Association used LEAD 2017 – which targets senior leadership in advertising and marketing agencies, media owners, brand owners and related sectors – as a platform to outline the priorities for the UK’s advertising and marketing industry for Brexit:

• Safeguard the UK’s competitive position as an important global and European hub for advertising and media businesses.
• Establish a workable and effective EU and global immigration policy to help UK advertising to continue to attract global talent, and address the skills shortage through education policy.
• Negotiate the UK’s position on various media and advertising-related EU rules and ensure as much market access as possible, through equivalence in UK law.
• Adopt a non-interventionist domestic regulatory approach to the advertising industry to provide market certainty and advertiser confidence and support its advertising self-regulation system through the ASA.
• In the longer term, consider what EU rules constitute red tape to be lifted after the UK has left the EU.

Stephen Woodford, Chief Executive Officer of the Advertising Association, comments: “Ad spend serves not just as an established bellwether for the wider economy, but is a driver of jobs and GDP growth, so negotiating the best possible terms for UK advertising should be a priority as Government engineers our exit from the EU.”

The IPM’s Trevill agrees. “With so much change hitting the world – let alone the industry – week after week, being central to the conversation with government is crucial.”

LEAD 2017 also focused attention on the London-centric nature of the UK advertising and marketing industry, with many speakers suggesting that marketers need to look beyond London to understand the wider business and, more importantly, the consumer view. Trevill comments: “The message was clear – the communications industry needs to burst the London-centric bubble we’ve been operating in for too long and engage with people across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. I’d argue that the IPM is already doing that, with so many of our key members based in other regions of the country.”

As part of its commitment to engaging with its members outside London, the IPM will be attending the Prolific North Live Expo on February 15^th and 16^th at EventCity Manchester. The Expo is free to attend and the IPM is inviting members and non-members alike to drop by its stand (105). If you want to make an appointment, then please do so by email to Carey.trevill@theipm.org.uk.

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