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Helen James takes over as CEO of MSQ’s The Gate - More About Advertising
Forsman & Bodenfors London CEO Helen James is replacing Jamie Elliott as CEO of MSQ creative agency The Gate. James also worked at BBH on Tesco and Virgin Media and co-founded Creative Equals at F&B. James (left) says: “People and ambition were undoubtedly the biggest drivers for me in choosing to take on this role.
Vicki Maguire leaves Havas London after five years as CCO - More About Advertising
Vicki Maguire was brought in as a key player kicking off a whole new era at Havas London. Recruited in 2020 by former CEO Xav Rees as part of a dream team, they initially had a lot of success - most notably securing Asda as a client and producing some memorable Christmas ads for the
Jude Law joins Uber Eats stellar line-up - More About Advertising
Jude Law is everywhere these days, transitioning from romantic lead to (often) the villain of the piece. So clever of Mother to sign him up in 'Romance’d Enough' for Uber Eats to do a bit of both. In this case being grumpy to smitten ladies who clearly recall the earlier Jude. The bar for Uber
BMB’s Laurent Simon: how brands are rewriting Y2K nostalgia for Gens Z and A - More About Advertising
Topshop returned to the high street, Freakier Friday and The Naked Gun drew people to the cinema, and Oasis was the soundtrack of the summer. It is 2025, but a few years after pop culture first caught the millennium bug, the Y2K nostalgia trend does not appear to be on its way out. On the
Santander says goodbye to House 337 – but not to Ant & Dec - More About Advertising
The 20-year partnership between Santander and House 337 comes to an end this week with one last campaign featuring the Bank of Antandec. Santander’s glitzy grand finale shows the fictional banking execs quitting their roles because they can’t possibly compete with Santander’s cashback credit card. New agency Publicis, which won the global creative and media
The measurement paradox: AI + Privacy = Better ROI or is it just hype? - More About Advertising
Marketers have been promised that artificial intelligence is the silver bullet for advertising's toughest challenge: accurate measurement. AI offers precision in attribution, sharper personalisation, and the kind of ROI improvements that make budget conversations much easier. Meanwhile, consumer privacy has become a non-negotiable priority. From GDPR to increasingly strict UK regulations, data collection faces unprecedented
New Voice finds its voice - More About Advertising
Agencies start with all sorts of platforms, trying to make themselves stand out from an ever-expanding market of competitors. Even as the conventional ad business is under pressure from those tech-driven mega-platforms. Natalia Forster was MD of Gut's Amsterdam office and she's founded Voice described as a "transformative business therapy lab (that) blends strategic business
Silent Creative: how no-sound ads win attention - More About Advertising
Digital content consumption has transformed completely. Most social video views in the UK now happen without sound. Platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook automatically play videos on mute, which means audiences engage with ads through visuals alone, not audio. This shift has rewritten the rules for advertisers. Traditional storytelling elements like narration, sound design, and
British Gas tipped to leave T&P for VCCP - More About Advertising
British Gas been with T&P in its multifarious guises (originally CHI & Partners) for what seems like ever - at least 20 years - but it's finally tipped to abandon ship for VCCP, which has made something of a speciality of winning big, complex corporates. Post lockdown T&P saw off a stiff challenge from Mother
Ad Tech in 2025: smarter, safer and built for engagement - More About Advertising
Advertising technology is changing faster than we've seen in a decade. What used to be about programmatic buying and automated bidding now powers everything marketers do. AI, privacy-focused data, and immersive ad formats are making campaigns both smarter and more creative. UK ad spend keeps growing despite economic uncertainty, and the tech behind better targeting,
Stagwell’s Penn in hot water over Israel - More About Advertising
One of the main consequences of Donald Trump is the politicisation of everything (we're still waiting for World War 111.) Business has been affected in numerous ways: tariffs obviously and the unseemly spectacle of business figures across the spectrum discovering their inner Elon Musk as they toady to the President, fearful that he'll throw their
Loveholidays and beans brief keep Ark Agency motoring - More About Advertising
Some agencies start big - NYC's Isle of Any with the New York Times - others small, with a raft of accounts, some of which may have staying power. Ark Agency, founded by former adam&eveDDB joint CEO Mat Goff and Anomaly MD Mike Wilton, has gone the latter route, winning a number of non-household names.
MAA Ad of the Week: Lime from The Or - More About Advertising
London should have ground to a halt this week with the RMT tube strike severing nearly all London Underground services (the RMT's ongoing campaign seems to be for zero hours with a pay rise) but doughty Londoners either took to the buses or, in vast numbers, Lime rental bikes. One commentator said it reminded him
Mescall takes leading role at Dentsu Creative - More About Advertising
Dentsu Creative has appointed John Mescall as global chief creative partner. Mescall is a former global ECD at McCann and founder of indie agency collective by TheNetwork. Mescall (above) says: “What drew me to Dentsu Creative is its deep belief in the power of creativity to drive meaningful impact across the board. It’s rare to
Burger King launches Wagyu with Ramsay - More About Advertising
Time was when Wagyu beef, which hailed from Japan, was the world's most expensive - reared on a special diet with, some say, beer rubbed into its hide although can't see how that made much difference. Seem to recall Gordon Ramsay being pilloried at one point for serving Wagyu from Australia in one of his
WPP Media debuts wide-ranging reorganisation into client-centric mode - More About Advertising
Shiny new WPP Media has revealed its new line-up as it benches the old GroupM which had individual agency bosses. Without further ado it is: Natalie Cummins, former CEO, EssenceMediacom UK – now WPP Media president, leading EssenceMediacom clients. Jon Stevens, former UK chief growth officer, WPP Media – now WPP Media president, leading Wavemaker
Sport England relaunches This Girl Can - More About Advertising
Sport England's 'This Girl Can' made a big impression and did lots of good for then agency FCB Inferno. It's since moved to new entity the grandly-entitled This Girl Can Collective comprising PR firm 23red, House of Oddities, The Outsiders and the Multicultural Marketing Consultancy. Sounds like an analogy for modern bureaucratic life, aka box-ticking.
Can VodafoneThree live up to its promises? - More About Advertising
Vodafone and Three are merging in the UK, bringing the UK's four big mobile networks down to, um, three alongside EE and also merged Virgin Media O2. So that's OK then: all parts of the UK will finally be able to communicate and prices won't go up (they already have.) But you have to put
Droga5’s Kingsbery joins American Haiku as exodus to indies continues - More About Advertising
There's a veritable exodus of senior creatives and creative agency managers from network agencies, hardly surprising as all you hear from most of the network owners is praise for the wonders of AI and tech. With the hasty addition of "creative still matters of course, it's what we do." It might seem sensible to look
McDonald’s tries martial arts with ‘Kung Fries’ - More About Advertising
The online/social tidal wave can offer the opportunity to do something different - long films for example as it's cheaper than airtime - and Leo in Taiwan has certainly taken advantage of this for McDonald's. 'Kung Fries' is three minutes of new martial arts moves from fight choreographer Master Scott Hung, designed to fend off
AMS Media wins National Grid - More About Advertising
AMS Media, one of the last of the wave of UK media independents still left standing, has been appointed to handle a three year campaign for the UK's National Grid. Last week M+C Saatchi was reappointed as creative agency. AMS, which worked on a campaign for National Grid last year, won a competitive pitch. National
Has Merlin abolished marketing? It’s all part of a trend.. - More About Advertising
Are CMOs an endangered species? Chief marketing officers, as they've become since being marketing directors, appear, at the very least, to be enjoying a much shorter lifespan. Big American companies are reported to hiring them on trial, which doesn't suggest a particularly strong commitment to the marketing function. Marketing rose to the top in the
Mr Grumpy Brian Cox stars for Emmy-winning Uber Eats and Special - More About Advertising
Uber Eats and agency Special US has muscled in on the previous dominance of Apple and Nike to win this year's Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial. 'Brian Cox Goes to College' is the debut ad for Uber One for Students which, inter alia, offers free food one day of the week. Directed by David Shane
WPP’s Rose names top team, shores up Coca-Cola account - More About Advertising
New WPP CEO Cindy Rose has made her first big appointments: Ogilvy CEO Devika Bulchandani to COO of the whole company replacing the departing Andrew Scott and Laurent Ezekiel, who was set to jump ship to Publicis, staying on as global CEO of Ogilvy Group and executive sponsor for WPP Open X. Floriane Tripolino is
Nike asks ‘Why Do It?’ as it updates long-running pillar campaign - More About Advertising
'Just Do It' has ben doing it for Nike since 1988 - not so well recently as the venerable sports brand has been losing share to newer competitors. Actually it's amazing it's stayed on or near the top for so long in an ever-shifting market. Now it's trying to freshen its appeal to a younger
Chivas Regal puts pit crew centre stage for Ferrari partnership - More About Advertising
Booze has to market itself where it can these days but it's still a bit odd to see Chivas Regal partnering with Ferrari in F1. But it's the Italian Grand Prix this weekend and Ferrari (Scuderia Ferrari HP, for its full handle) will be hoping drivers Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton (especially) do rather better
MAA Ad of the Week: Wype from Transmission - More About Advertising
Time was when the closest bums came to special treatment in adland were loveable labrador puppies from Andrex. Now every bit of anatomy is the object of special treatment and bottoms have a range of options. Wype says it's the UK's fastest-growing bottom care brand and it's taken to the airwaves with a gently humorous
Stanners jumping ship to Edelman is a sign of network creative agencies in distress. - More About Advertising
One swallow doesn't make a summer of course but Kate Stanners (below, global CCO of Saatchi & Saatchi departing for an international creative role at PR giant Edelman, is certainly a sign that's all isn't hunky dory in the world of big ad agencies. On one hand it's another sign that so-called "earned" media (stuff
IKEA joins the ad chorus - More About Advertising
Tunes, or jingles as they were, seem to making a comeback. Once they were a part of nearly every agency pitch for consumer goods; one agency, Allen Brady & Marsh, used to have co-founder Rod Allen banging away on the old joanna. Back in the distant past of MAA, Melbourne's 'Dumb Ways to Die' swept
Super Bowl ads sell out at $9m a pop - More About Advertising
February's Super Bowl ads are sold out it seems, at $9m for 30 seconds with a lot of advertisers securing their spots by coughing up another $9m for owner NBCUniversal's other "sports portfolio." Buy one, pay for another one it seems. Super Bowl LX will air on NBC, Peacock and Telemundo on Feb 8. NBCU's
Why MAA needs you - More About Advertising
MAA has more than 40,000 visits a month - from the obvious centres London, NYC and the West Coast to everywhere in Europe; India , China, Australia and as far as the Sudan and Iran. It's reasonable to suppose that we provide something useful. Even diverting. One of our key sources of revenue, along with
Saatchi CCO Kate Stanners joins PR giant Edelman in suprise move - More About Advertising
Kate Stanners, one of the UK and global ad industry's best-known creatives, is jumping ship from Saatchi and Saatchi to independently-owned PR giant Edelman. Stanners (below) currently chairwoman and global CCO at Saatchi, will become chief CCO international at Edelman, reporting to another former ad agency exec global CCO Judy John. Stanners says: “Earned media
John Lewis hymns 100 years of price promise - More About Advertising
Saatchi & Saatchi must be back in John Lewis' good books after somehow managing to lose Waitrose after a good Christmas campaign. It's in the chair for a celebration of the retailer's famed 'never knowingly undersold,' coined in 1925 (although it had a couple of years off not that long ago.) And the agency has
Ocean Outdoor joins Women’s Super League football team - More About Advertising
Women’s Super League Football (WSL Football) has signed a three-year deal with Ocean Outdoor UK to drive visibility and awareness of the Barclays Women’s Super League (BWSL) and Barclays Women’s Super League 2 (BWSL2) across digital Out of Home (DOOH) screens in 18 UK cities. Screens will feature key game moments throughout the season. The
Lego conjures up an unholy mess - More About Advertising
Lego is inviting us to "Rebuild the World' with its video games, created in-house and starring actor Tom Holland (for a bit then he mysteriously disappears - or does he?) Directed by creative duo Los Peréz through Biscuit Filmworks with creative shop Chaos x Magic. And lots of Lego bits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hA_2Xz7d8Y Spectacular yes; lots of
Wype narrows lead in race for bottoms - More About Advertising
Bottoms are everywhere these days: Andrex has memorably encapsulated their importance for schoolkids while there's an ad around - its name eludes me - which has a whole chorus line hymning their behinds. This might have been the one Guy & Co's Sean Mulholland was thinking of in his Desert Island Ads wondering why most
Mother saddles up to take over Nationwide brief - More About Advertising
They'll be watching this one eagerly at New Commercial Arts, the first ad from Mother since it took over the account following NCA's sale to Ogilvy (account conflict) but the same Dominic West A.N.Y Bank franchise. This time it's for Nationwide's 'Scam Checker,' with Dom's long-suffering daughter stranded cashless at the airport only to be
Can musical comedy help Waitrose better chicken pledge? - More About Advertising
Something seems to be stirring in UK adland, is entertainment really on the way back? After years of performance-driven assault and battery there's seemingly the recognition (in some quarters at least) that if you don't like the ads you're not going to think much of the product. Waitrose is currently undergoing something of a chicken
TBWA\Paris attempts the moon for Winamax - More About Advertising
Big budget ads tend to emerge from big budget advertisers, the likes of Apple and Amazon who can afford to spend a few quid to give ot both barrels. Another such category it seems is betting, a high margin if contentious business. French sports betting leader Winamax is giving it all that and more in
Dentsu eyes international sale and exit - More About Advertising
Dentsu has, in effect, put a for sale sign on its international business, hiring Mitsubishi UFJ, Morgan Stanley and Nomura Securities to sound out potential buyers. Dentsu appears to have turned the corner in Japan, where it dominates in creative, media and production but struggled elsewhere. At one time it seemed to be thriving through