Coronavirus Update
The key news this week regarding Covid-19 was of course last night’s announcement by the Government of an extension to our lockdown by a further three weeks. Following this, we issued a statement thanking NHS staff for their hard work, recognising the need for the extension and highlighting how UK advertising has adapted to the crisis. Our Chief Executive, Stephen Woodford, commented:
“Firstly, I want to recognise the incredible efforts of key workers across the UK, particularly those on the front line in the NHS, to protect the people of our country at this time. I think I speak on behalf of everyone in UK advertising that the work they are doing to keep us safe will never be forgotten. Secondly, I want to pay tribute to speed, breadth and scale of the Government’s response to the economic challenge and the measures announced so far are welcome and vital to protect jobs and our economy so it can revive quickly post the crisis.” You can read the statement in full on our website here. It was also covered by Little Black Book here.
As ever, we have been keeping our Government advice page on our website up to date with the latest changes and announcements. On Wednesday, for example, the Government announced changes to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme cut-off date. Find more information on this and other schemes that you may be eligible for on our website here. As well as this, we have been tracking the latest news and opinion pieces from industry media on the virus, which you can find here.
Welcoming Sir Keir Starmer
Following Sir Keir Starmer’s recent election as Leader of the Labour Party, our Chief Executive Stephen Woodford wrote him a letter to congratulate him on his new role and to outline the UK advertising industry’s position as the Covid-19 outbreak continues. It also includes examples of how industry is assisting in the fight against the virus as well as several policy suggests that would enable business to better meet and overcome the crisis.
You can read the letter in full over on our website here.
Congratulations to our Young Lions
As the UK representative for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, it is our job to recruit some of the industry’s future stars to take to Cannes with us (next year, due to Coronavirus!) to compete in the Young Lions competitions, against other star competitors from all over the world.
To do this, we ran a UK version of the competitions, which was based on our diversity and inclusion initiative, because we want UK advertising to be the creative industries’ most progressive sector in recruiting, retaining and developing the most inclusive workforce. The competition was made up of six categories – marketers, media, print, digital, design and film – and we saw some really brilliant work. It was tough to pick the winners, but, after much deliberation, we decided on the winners, runners-up and highly commended from each category, and you can now find out more about each of them over on our website. Meet the winners of the marketers competition here; the media competition here; the print competition here; the digital competitionhere; the design competition here; and the film competition here.
A huge thanks and congratulations goes to everyone who took part – we loved seeing all of your creative work!
AD PAYS 8: THE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE
Despite the situation we are currently in, we have never seen a greater push from Adland doing brilliant creative and entrepreneurial work in response to COVID-19. This is why we have now added a dedicated COVID-19 category to our Ad Pays 8 hub, which highlights industry work that has a positive contribution to society. This week, find out how our member Google is supporting small businesses here.
AD OF THE WEEK
You’ve made it this far – why not treat yourself and watch our ad of the week?
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