A lively gathering of advertising industry leaders convened at the Advertising Standards Authority’s office on Tuesday 27th January to mark the launch of Matt Bourn and James Best’s new book, Trusted Advertising: How to harness the value of trust in your brand. The book is published on 3rd February by Kogan Page and this event was an opportunity to say thank you to the many contributors who had shared their thoughts, insights and experiences to help shape the book’s content.
The event opened with an address by Baroness Nicky Morgan, Chair of the ASA, who posed the key question of why trust matters in advertising. She drew on her experience as a Minister of Culture to note that if you have a trusted sector that abides by the rules and a regulator that enforces the rules, ministers will be less likely to need to get involved. Lady Morgan also highlighted the upcoming challenges for the ASA within new and emerging areas of advertising within Ai and Chatbots and how everyone in the market needs to meet the same high standards of trust.
Trusted Advertising co-author James Best, Chair of the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) then thanked the many contributors and endorsers of the book and talked about how surprised and pleased himself and Matt were at people’s willingness to be interviewed for the book. He noted that it really does seem to be a hot topic of the moment, especially given how much is going on in the world as a whole regarding trust, which impacts all of us.
Co-author and Advertising Association Director of Communications, Matt Bourn, then shared some of his reasons for writing a book about trust in advertising and his creative writing process that led to his ‘anchors’ for the book being both in 1926 and 2026. Matt also asked the assembled group: “What on earth is happening to trust in the 21st century? Why do we care about it? Why is it box office gold with something like ‘The Traitors’? Chekhov said if you can’t trust people, life becomes impossible. This is why we have to be trusted, this is why businesses have to be trusted, this is why our advertising has to be trusted.”
The event attendees were then asked to take part in a specially devised game – ‘A Question of Trust’. Eight options were held up on signs and each person had stand by the sign that they believed was the most important factor in driving trust in their next advertising campaign. Someone from each of the eight groups then explained why they had stood next to that sign. James Best led the big reveal… that actually all of the factors were important; it was not about just doing one of them but all of them.
ASA CEO Guy Parker closed the event with some words about the ASA and its continued drive for public awareness of its existence and its work, as the drive for higher public trust in advertising continues to be a key mission of the self-regulatory body.
Trusted Advertising: How to harness the value of trust in your brand is published on 3rd February by Kogan Page and copies can be ordered here.
Photo credit: Bronac McNeill
