Our thanks to the Culture Secretary for speaking at RENEW 2022

Stephen Woodford, Chief Executive, Advertising Association, said:

We welcome the Culture Secretary’s speech to our industry today at RENEW 2022 and the positive statements she made about the strength, innovation, and creativity of the UK advertising industry, as well as our industry’s world-leading climate change and inclusion programmes, Ad Net Zero and All In. It is in all our interests to see the UK thrive as a global centre of excellence for advertising creativity, digital advertising, media, and tech. This all helps attract talent, business, and inward investment to the UK and is a vital part of a competitive and innovative economy. It is reassuring to hear the Minister wishes to support innovation and recognises the industry’s importance in supporting the UK’s economic and social recovery, and in creating jobs.

We also welcome the support she gives to the ASA and the work it is doing to be an effective self-regulatory body for advertising in all media, including online. The ASA is proactive in this respect, playing a full role in the wider debate that Government, politicians, regulators, and industry is having – we all share the ambition for the UK to be the best and safest place to advertise and do business online.

Online advertising provides many economic benefits, not least it supports the free and open internet, but it is an area for constant improvement and evolution as the technology advances. In addition to the initiatives mentioned by the Secretary of State, including the AA’s Trust work and IAB UK’s Gold Standard, our RENEW partners, ISBA and the IPA have been involved in significant projects such as the Programmatic Supply Chain Transparency Study with the AOP by PwC and through their membership of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, while the IPA has been championing in the UK an initiative called TAG Trustnet. At the beginning of 2022 TAG TrustNet was recognised by the UK Government as an exemplar for other sectors to learn from and has been appointed by the Association of National Advertisers as a technical partner for their 2022 programmatic study.

The Advertising Association will be active in making robust contributions to the debates about online advertising regulation to dispel misconceptions and address the root causes of any problems. To that end, we are pleased to hear the Culture Secretary’s desire to find solutions that blend industry responsibility initiatives, effective and pro-active self-regulation, with coherent legislation and other wider policy interventions and reviews.

It is also vital that the DCMS review of online advertising acts in concert with other areas of digital policy, such as the Plan for Digital Regulation, being pursued by government to deliver a coherent and joined-up approach. The best way to achieve effective regulation will be to work together with our industry.