Finally, it’s here. No, not Christmas, but the long-awaited Budget after the many conversations about how to drive growth in our economy. At this point, it’s time to say once again that advertising has a huge role to play here, through supporting innovation, competition, and job creation (here’s looking at you, Ad Pays). We saw small, and welcome, measures in the Budget to improve the skills pipeline to businesses, but beyond this, very little directly relating to advertising. You can read our statement here.
If we’re really focused on growth though, it appears the biggest opportunity lies in the green economy, performing head and shoulders above the rest of our economy. That value is being fully realised by the businesses leaning into sustainability, and we’ve been reviewing how this is happening with our colleagues and peers at the IPA this week during their excellent standing-room only Sustainability Summit. The success and growth stories are increasinly apparent – we heard directly from the Government’s behaviour change experts on how advertising is playing a positive role through their heat pump campaigns while last week, community fitness initiative GoodGym won the hotly contested Sky Zero Footprint Fund Grand Prix.
This story of commercial growth coupled with sustainable success is at the heart of what we’ll be discussing at next week’s Ad Net Zero Leadership Summit to help mark the 5th anniversay of our climate action programme.
Our pick of the ads:Â
- Our Ad in the A is WPP’s ‘It’s Pixel, actually’ bringing back the stars from Love Actually for Google.
- Dogs Trust is emphasising how ‘Every Dog Deserves a Happy Place’ by VCCP, with media from the7stars
- Christmas has been sabotaged by McDonald’s in ‘Christmas Grinched’ by Leo UK.
- As the new Wicked sequel has been released, Universal Pictures has changed London’s iconic street into ‘Yellow Brick Lane’ by Organic, part of Havas Play UK.
Our must reads:Â
- Omnicom has closed the Interpublic acquisition for $9 billion. (Campaign)
- Pre-booking is open for Clearcast’s 2026 courses on the clearance process, TV ad rules and systems. (LBB)
- The MEFA Diversity and Inclusion Awards 2025 winners have been revealed, with a win for IPG Mediabrands in our All In Champion category. (Campaign)
- Tesco’s news brand ad is most effective in the latest edition of our series ‘The Works’ with Kantar. (Marketing Week)
- Santander has created AI generated spoof ads to educate people about scammers online in the run up to Christmas. (Campaign)
Dates for your diary:Â
- ISBA and the Ad Accessibility Network are hosting the Ad Accessibility Town Hall on 3 December 12-1pm, a session designed to inform, inspire, and equip you with the latest in accessible advertising. Sign up here.
- LEAD 2026 will be celebrating our centenary with a focus on Leadership Through Trust. Join us on 5 February here.
- Early bird tickets are selling fast for our Media Business Course, taking place from 7-10 July. Learn about the art and craft of media planning from the best in the business. Book your place here.
And finally… we held our Christmas party yesterday which was kickstarted by a hotly contested game of Savage Santa (hosted by our PGA colleague, Chris Walker), followed by an afternoon of fun at Fairgame City, near St Paul’s. Let the festive celebrations begin!
