5 Things the UK Has Given the Global Ad Industry

Starting today, London once again plays host to Advertising Week Europe – the rapidly growing offspring of New York's long-running festival. It's a welcome addition to the calendar and a great celebration of our industry.

On that subject, a couple of weeks ago I took part in an event designed to promote the UK's creative economy, organised by research firm Enders Analysis. Its CEO Claire Enders asked me to talk about the success of advertising concepts that originated in the UK and went on to shape the global industry.

It was an unusual brief for me, because I'm used to talking about our businesses and the markets they operate in all around the world. No country has a monopoly on talent, innovation or creativity.

But Britain has played – and continues to play – an important part in the story of advertising.

So, with the caveat that the UK is far from the only country to have contributed heavily to the development of our sector (someone should do the same exercise for the US, for example), I stuck more or less to the brief and offered the following “five things the UK has given the global ad industry.”

1. First, pioneers. Visionaries like David Ogilvy, the Brit who, alongside American giants like Bill Bernbach, helped to define the 20th-century US advertising industry.

David learned how to sell going door-to-door of behalf of Aga stoves in the UK, before moving to America and blazing a trail through Madison Avenue (via Gallup).

He elevated the trade of advertising, bringing style, intellectual rigour and consummate salesmanship to everything he did.

Although he passed away before this century began, David remains one of the pre-eminent figures of modern advertising.

The agency that still bears his name is one of the world’s most successful, and he continues to be quoted reverently by students and practitioners alike.

My favourite Ogilvy-ism? “The consumer is not a moron.”

2. There is a great deal of art in advertising, but much of the credit for the science that underpins its effectiveness goes to two British executives: Stanley Pollitt of Boase Massimi Pollitt and Stephen King of J Walter Thompson.

Between them they invented one of the UK ad industry’s most influential exports: the role of account planner (and account planning departments to house them).

Account or brand planning involves rigorous analysis of a brand and its market. It brings the consumer into the strategic and creative process through the intelligent application of research, data and insight.

Today it is the foundation of every creative brief.

Pollitt and King changed the face of advertising agencies and advertising itself, affording it greater effectiveness, accountability and professional respect.

Fast forward to the present day, and it should come as no surprise that many of the 21st century’s leading industry thinkers, from Ogilvy’s Rory Sutherland (on behavioural economics and marketing) to GroupM’s Rob Norman (on the digital space), spring from the well of British advertising.

3. Technology entrepreneurs are not only grown in Silicon Valley. The UK marketing services industry also produces more than its share of digital leaders.

This is Ajaz Ahmed, CEO of AKQA. AKQA is one of the world’s top digital agencies, with global clients like Nike, Audi, Heineken and WWF.

The company was formed by Ajaz and his colleague James Hilton in London in 1995. It has won every award going and is a byword for cutting-edge, technology-based campaigns.

It has offices in London, San Francisco, New York, Paris, Washington DC, Amsterdam, Berlin, Shanghai, Tokyo, Atlanta and Portland, so people don’t think of it as a British company any more.

But perhaps they should.

4. Yes, this is me with Ronaldo – the original, Brazilian, World Cup-winning Ronaldo – at our London offices on Farm Street.

Ronaldo is, believe it or not, currently spending time in the UK, in part to learn more about the marketing services business.

The Daily Mail said he was here to be our intern, but he’s not exactly making the tea.

It’s not as improbable as it sounds, as WPP has a longstanding joint venture with Ronaldo in Brazil called 9ine.

The serious point is that of all the places in the world that Ronaldo could have chosen to go to study our business (and, believe me, he could have chosen anywhere), he chose London.

And that applies to the industry in general – the UK continues to be one of the prime destinations for talented people as they develop a career in advertising.

5. As I said before, the UK certainly doesn’t have a monopoly on creativity. London can sometimes be arrogant in thinking it's the only focal point, and we have to watch that. The Cannes international advertising festival shows that brilliant work can and does emerge from all corners of the globe.

But I think we can argue convincingly that Britain has played a significant role in setting the bar for creativity in advertising.

Those of you in the UK over a certain age will recognise this rather grainy shot from the iconic Hovis “Boy on Bike” ad by Collett Dickenson Pearce.

It was filmed in 1973 by Ridley Scott, a few years before he directed the first Alien film.

Scott was part of a generation of exceptional British creatives who shook up the industry on both sides of the Atlantic – Scott’s contemporaries were people like Alan Parker, David Puttnam and Hugh Hudson.

They showed that ads could not only match the TV shows they appeared between, but even surpass them.

And their legacy can be seen in the quality and ambition of much of today’s advertising, all around the world.

This article is based on a presentation to the Enders Analysis Creative UK event in London on March 18.