advertising matters 22.02.19

Around the world, around the world…

On Monday, we announced the launch of UK advertising’s first ever Export Month alongside partners from our Promote UK group, the Department for International Trade (DIT) and the IPA. The month-long celebration in March will feature a wide programme of activity in the biggest effort yet to showcase UK advertising services to key markets around the world.

Landmark moments already planned for the celebration include:

• The first annual UK Ad Exports Report – We’ll be launching the first report of its kind at a unique event at Ad Week Europe, which is running from 18-21 March.
• Shanghai International Advertising Festival (SHIAF) – Taking place from 4-8 March, SHIAF will feature a unique forum and trade mission to highlight UK ad expertise to Chinese brand marketers.
• South by Southwest – From 8-13 March, we’ll be in Austin showing that although everything maybe bigger in Texas, British is better (at least in advertising!)
• APA’s Tokyo-London forum 2019 – the best of the UK production industry heads to Japan
• Cannes Lions UK competition – Our Young Lions competition gets underway
• Export Accelerator – a new online resource funded by DIT to help UK advertising businesses create their export strategy
• Celebrating excellence in exports – encouraging businesses to get involved
• Promote UK Year One celebrations – marking a year of our Promote UK group to showcase UK advertising on the world stage

The launch of Export Month has been widely covered on social and in the media, including in Campaign, The Drum, Little Black Book, Marketing Week and Research Live. We’re keen for as much support as possible from industry for this exciting celebration, so get in touch with Matthew Evans if you want to take part. To read the full release and for more information about all of the activity listed above head over to our website here.

Head that Lion roar!

On Wednesday, we launched the UK Young Lions competition as part of our activity as the UK rep for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Along with our partners Channel 4, Clear Channel, DIT, Framestore and M&C Saatchi, we are looking for entries from teams of under-30s UK advertising professionals to go head-to-head against creative talent from around the world this summer.

The categories that we are running are Design, Digital, Film, Media, Print and Marketers,and we will be flying 12 young people – comprising of 6 teams of 2 (one team for each category) – to Cannes to compete.

Stephen Woodford, our Chief Executive, commented: “The UK has traditionally excelled at Cannes Lions, winning over 1,500 awards since 2005. Having seen the Young Lions competing at the festival and spoken with some of them, it is a brilliant forum for young talent in our industry to demonstrate their creative strength. We welcome entries from across our industry to win the chance to be apart of the team representing the UK in Cannes this summer.”

All the information about the UK Young Lions competition including how to enter and how to put yourself forward as a judge, can be found on our dedicated Cannes Lions page on our website here. The deadline to register for the competition is March 15.

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