Engaged key stakeholders face to face and millions more through the media in a fresh debate about the positive contribution that advertising makes to society.
The challenge
Too often, it is too easy to blame advertising for a range of society’s ills in the ever-more commercial world we live in. Our challenge was to help the Advertising Association reset its relationship with a series of key stakeholders and kick start a new conversation around advertising.
Our response
Research shows that the less people understand about how advertising and marketing communications work, the more suspicious they are of it. So we set out to explain the value it delivers to the economy, culture and society.
We did not want to preach to the choir, so deliberately set out to engage critics as well as friends. Initially we did this on a one-to-one basis, then in group workshop style discussions, leading up to set piece public debates held with the Royal Society of Arts.
The Mad Men we Love to Hate: our changing relationship with advertising, was chaired by Matthew Taylor (the RSA’s CEO) with Nicola Mendelsohn (President of the IPA), Lord Watson (Chair of Havas Media) and Sam Delaney (social commentator, broadcaster and author) speaking to a packed house.
The themes of the debate focused on:
- How UK advertising may be on the brink of a new ‘golden age’
- How advertising, today more than ever, is a social and cultural barometer
- How brands react - in good times and in bad
Challenging the view that advertising is about setting unrealistic – or purely materialistic - aspirations
Results
Our campaign objectives were to:
- create more positive media coverage for advertising: in the build up to the debate we reached millions across the BBC with interviews including the Today programme (Radio 4), Radio Five Live (breakfast), BBC News 24, BBC 1 o’clock news, You & Yours (Radio 4) and BBC World
- build the community of advocates and create a shift in the stance of key opinion formers: the capacity audience of more than 200 was drawn from across industry, NGOs and the commentariat with great social media activity around the debate and plenty of tweeting from the audience
