Ad Matters 13.09.2024

I’m writing this as the sun rises after an event-filled end to another exciting week in advertising. My conclusion? It starts and ends with trust. It is the bedrock of all our work as we make the case for responsible advertising and its valuable economic and social contribution.

We have been working hard on the latest wave of the ASA awareness ad campaign which includes, for the first time, the meerkats from CompareTheMarket. We know that greater awareness of the ASA means greater trust in advertising…

For all those asking who cares about advertising, I can unequivocally say we (the Advertising Association) do.

As we run the rule over the key things we need to do to strengthen our industry, my honest take is we all know what we need to do. We need the positive energy everyone has for change to align behind some big collective goals. As our President has said, it only works if it all works. It’s in our hands to make industry-wide progress on trust, inclusion, and sustainability.

So, I ask everyone reading this who wants to contribute to positive change in the UK advertising industry, to get in touch with me here at the AA. We’ll be happy to share the latest on our workstreams across talent, trust, inclusion, climate action and more.

Our must-reads:

• Industry leaders reveal where it is possible for the marketing industry to find optimism in the months ahead, with reference to our AA/WARC figures. (Creative Salon)
• Some big industry news: Ogilvy acquires New Commercial Arts with James Murphy named UK CEO. (Campaign)
• UK adults are spending less time consuming commercial media as they slip back into pre-pandemic media consumption patterns, according to IPA’s 2024 Making Sense report. (Marketing Week)
• One on how we can make confident decisions to include queer media in our plans. (Campaign)
• In a preview of the Future of Media Manchester, agency leaders discuss why great work comes from anywhere. (The Media Leader)

Our pick of ads:

• John Lewis delves into conversations around home decisions with ‘The home dialogues’ by Saatchi & Saatchi.
• CALM has partnered with ITV to focus on youth suicide with a campaign called ‘Missed birthdays’ by adam&eveDDB.
• Tesco celebrates its Meal Deal offer in a social film by BBH.
• Amazon Business’ latest campaign brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in a humorous commercial by Joint.

Dates for your diary:

• Our Head of Policy and Government Affairs, Chris Walker, will be sharing exclusive insights into the Labour party conference at Adwanted Events’ The Future of Media Manchester on 26 September! Register here.
• Want to know more about IAB’s Gold Standard and its benefits? Join their “Enhancing Digital Advertising: Understanding IAB UK’s Gold Standard” webinar on 26 September. Register here.
• Pinterest Presents 2024, Pinterest’s global advertiser summit, is back on 1 October! You can sign up here.
• We are delighted to bring LEAD Scotland to Glasgow on 10 October. Book your tickets here.

And finally, it’s been a week of birthday celebrations for AdGreen, who share their home at the AA’s offices! AdGreen is celebrating four years of officially being a company and last month launched their newest carbon calculator to help ad professionals measure and reduce the emissions from their productions. Cheers team!