Tucked away in Norfolk, the History of Advertising Trust (HAT) is one of the UK ad industry’s best-kept secrets and its 50th anniversary celebration at the IPA last week was a timely reminder that the key to moving forward often lies in looking back. The team at HAT has spent the last half-century – collecting over 10 million items of creative work, to provide us all with a rich cultural catalogue of social history.
To mark the anniversary, we had the privilege of sponsoring HAT’s Most Treasured Item award. I was handed the job of presenting the trophy recognising Jeremy Bullmore’s original sketches for the Mr Kipling brand pitch. We are lucky enough to have a brilliant essay by Jeremy as part of our Advertising’s Big Questions series – you can read ‘What is advertising?’ here.
HAT’s open to visitors – more details here and there’s a fantastic archive available online too. If you want to immerse yourself in the origins of a brand, search for inspiration for a new campaign or simply marvel at advertising’s ongoing links to culture and society, I can highly recommend.
Our pick of the ads:
- Our Ad in the A is Dentsu Creative UK’s ‘For All Wheelkind’ for Halfords. The new platform is designed to reflect both the breadth of the Halfords business today and its role in keeping Britain moving.
- BHH London has created three films for Monzo celebrating how simpler financial management can give business owners more time focusing on their business. It extends the ‘Get Busy Living’ platform launched by Monzo in July.
- After a successful campaign last year, Leo UK are once again working with McDonald’s on ‘World Menu Heist’, bringing nine menu items from eight countries to the UK and Ireland.
- Charlie Bigham’s is championing quality food through its new brand platform ‘Slowly Does It’ by VCCP Blue.
Our must-reads:
- Launching today, new research from Havas has revealed an ‘AI efficiency trap’, when AI focuses disproportionately on creating efficiency for the brand, instead of value for the customer (Campaign).
- Channel 4’s chief audience and marketing officer, Katie Jackson, explains their strategy to get audiences talking, through campaigns such as the sewage fountain for Dirty Business (The Drum).
- Should planners consider not simply whether an environment is trusted, but what kind of trust or association the brand can benefit from too? (The Media Leader).
- Clearcast’s Sam Smith discusses the complexity of advertising compliance online and their development of iClear and allClear, which brings greater accountability and trust to online advertising (LBB).
Dates for your diary:
- On 30 September, UK Advertising will host the UK Advertising x Saudi Arabia webinar with Athar Festival. If Saudi Arabia is a market you’re already working in, or looking to understand better, you can join online at 2pm UK Time on Zoom here.
- The IPA Effectiveness Conference returns on 7 October in Shoreditch and online, bringing together diverse opinions and top strategists and industry leaders. Discounts are applied for bookings of 5 or more in-person tickets.
- The Marketing Society is hosting The Global Changemakers Conference on 11 November at the QEII Conference Centre in London, bringing together 500+ senior marketers to discuss this year’s theme: Ambition. Find out more here.
- Our flagship summit, LEAD, will return to the QEII Centre in Westminster on the morning of 28 January 2027. Help shape the agenda by taking 2 minutes to fill in our survey here.
WPP Productions officially opened their new flagship site, Devon’s Point, in East London this week, with an impressive display of its content creation capability. It’s a 34,000 sq. ft set-up under one (very large) roof, where AI, virtual production technology, and post-production capabilities come together with human creativity. We saw a dancing robot, a real car on the virtual streets of Paris and some serious tech, with Cindy Rose OBE, telling us about the growth strategy behind the significant investment. Read more about it here.
