advertising matters 17.08.18

A plastic free dip in the sea?

With holiday season upon us, the thought of soaking up the sun on a white sandy beach and cooling off in crystal-clear waters is on everybody’s mind. But in reality, some of our dream destinations have become home to an influx of plastic pollution, so it seems fitting to look at some of the ways the ad industry is ‘going green to keep it clean’.

According to Greenpeace, (who themselves came out with this great ad earlier this year with Ogilvy & Mather), an estimated 12.7 million tonnes of plastic end up in our oceans every year, and it is now turning up in every corner of the planet, posing a danger to ocean life and human dinner plates.

Following the increasing awareness of the issue, a growing list of brands have been fighting back against plastic waste. The most recent of these is the cosmetics retailer Lush, which is encouraging Londoners to ditch single-use coffee cups with a pop-up shop in Soho. Also in recent weeks, Morrisons has removed plastic sleeves from cucumbers as a part of its ongoing effort to cut down plastic use, and Disney has announced that by 2019 the company will eliminate single-use plastic straws and plastic stirrers at all owned and operated locations across the globe.

Here at the AA we are doing our bit by reducing our plastic consumption, installing colour-coded recycling bins, and we’re looking to switch to an eco-friendly 100% recycled paper printing company for upcoming events. What are you doing to go that bit greener?

A channel for diversity

Following Channel 4’s announcement that its 2018 Diversity in Advertising Awards (the initiative that created these recent well-known Maltesers and Lloyds ads) will be focusing on the portrayal of women in advertising, the shortlist has now been released.

The Diversity in Advertising Awards is a commitment to help improve diversity in advertising each year until 2020, and this year, Channel 4 has invited brands and creative agencies to develop a campaign exploring both the proportion of representation and how women are represented in adverts. The winning creative idea will receive £1m of commercial airtime.

Finalists will pitch their ideas to a judging panel chaired by Channel 4 CCO Jonathan Allan, and including among others Claire Beale, Global Editor-in-Chief, Campaign; Dan Brooke, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Channel 4; and our very own Karen Fraser, Director of advertising’s think tank, Credos, who was this week filmed and interviewed by Channel 4 about how she felt the Diversity in Advertising award has influenced advertising, how it features different aspects of diversity and how she felt to be a judge.

This boy can-cans

Last year, the industry’s media literacy programme, Media Smart, ran a campaign called the Boys’ Biggest Conversation starring celebrity medic Dr Ranj Singh in the supporting film. Evidently, following its success Dr Ranj has now been announced as a contestant on the upcoming series of Strictly Come Dancing!

Being the committed ambassador that he is, Ranj bravely bares his body (and soul) for the cameras in a bid to get young men across the country talking about body image and the effect it has on their mental wellbeing.

We’d encourage all our colleagues from across the industry to watch the film and get involved in the conversation #ThisBoyTalks. We wish Dr Ranj good luck in the competition!

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