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.

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This Week in Public Affairs: 2 October 2020

/ October 2nd 2020 /

Government Announcements

This week the Government announced a quarantine exemption in England for select roles in advertising production (directors, actors and directors of photography). This will allow the UK advertising industry to continue to have access to the best directing talent in the world and international brands will be able to shoot in England. The exemption does not extend to Wales. Discussions with devolved governments in Scotland and Northern Ireland are ongoing.

The Government also announced support for skills and education this week, which includes a free, fully funded college course for adults without an A-Level or equivalent qualification, more flexible higher education loans and financing for shorter-term studies, and increased apprenticeship opportunities. The AA continues to lobby for a professional skills grant, which has so far been well received by BEIS.

COVID-19 Business Recovery

We hosted our latest C-19 Business Recovery call on Wednesday, to discuss industry reactions to the latest Government announcements, stakeholder research and the AA’s proposals for an advertising tax credit and professional skills grant. The lack of production insurance was flagged as a serious issue facing the sector.

European Engagement

The AA and our European colleagues met for an Advertising Information Group (AIG) meeting to consider its response to the EU’s New Consumer Agenda. The proposed legislation seeks to strengthen consumer laws but the potential scope is immense and could have far reaching implications for advertising, the media and consumer freedom of choice.

 

The PA team also wrote to Members of the European Parliament regarding a report on the Digital Services Act.

Media Smart

The Media Smart Steering Committee met on Tuesday. The meeting discussed Media Smart’s ongoing and upcoming projects, which include the ‘Boys’ Biggest Conversation’, a campaign film on body image going into cinemas through the in-kind support of Pearl & Dean; a resource on ‘Managing Your Online Advertising Experience’ to be launched in schools next week, and one on Piracy and IP which will be released in November.

Media Smart, the industry’s education programme, was quick to adapt its strategy during lockdown to support home schooling and remote learning. Website visits more than doubled, from 10,00 to 26,000 and resource downloads reached a record 9,500 from March – September.