Our Plans For You For 2018

Our aim at the APA is to help you have the best year possible.

The challenges of 2017 – the ultra-competitive market, client cost cutting, some agencies seeking to expand the amount of production they do themselves and Brexit uncertainty won’t magically disappear, of course, but we will strive to increase opportunities for APA members.

What does that mean in practice?

We will continue to build on our traditional roles – standard contracts, advice on production, copyright, insurance et al plus training, ensuring that they are provided to the highest standard.

In addition to all of this we will be focusing even more so on helping you get more work – which, at the end of the day, is what we all want.

How will we help you learn more?

We will have information for you about how to work with advertisers directly; in terms of marketing to them, managing the relationship and the best way to provide the additional services required.

We will also be hosting presentations for advertisers on how to work with production companies efficiently – whether through an agency or direct – so they can see the benefits your expertise brings to them and can feel comfortable as to how they assess value, making them more likely to buy your services.

Part of our mission will also be helping client procurement understand value in production, and helping APA members understand procurement and be in a better place to develop opportunities of working with procurement.

How will we help promote your work?

We will be ensuring that production – including, of course, editing, VFX, music production, sound design and animation – has a high profile across major industry events, so the critical value of what you do in the advertising process continues to be recognised and valued. We will fulfil this through being part of Advertising Week Europe, now London’s most important advertising event, which is unique in gathering the entirety of the advertising industry, to our events in Cannes and Ciclope and by celebrating your expertise in Craftworks, in partnership with David Reviews.

As part of that, we will introduce you to – and promote links with – key international markets, alongside promoting your work to agencies and advertisers here in the UK. Look out for news on our plans to promote the UK further in Asian markets in particular.

Promoting your work in new areas of expertise to agencies and advertisers – in VR, AR, 360 and other experiential formats – is another focus and our IDEAS awards were created to do that.

At the heart of this, as ever, will be The APA Show and the APA Collection which will go to an expanding list of countries to promote UK production.

What about Brexit?

We will continue to work with our colleagues at the Advertising Association, to make sure the voice of production is heard on wider issues that affect our business, such as Brexit. Our campaigning focus with the AA will continue to be ensuring the Government understands the critical importance of overseas talent to the success of London advertising and production.

What else will we be doing in 2018?

The Future of Advertising has been around for a while but this year it’s had a revamp! With a focus on future-thinking ideas, that will help your business planning and help you seize new opportunities to apply your expertise.

We will also be building on our initiatives that help you minimise the impact of your productions on the environment and promote diversity. We will soon be announcing an event called ‘Good Karma’, which will reflect our member’s enthusiasm in ensuring that production is socially responsible.

We will be publishing a schedule of presentations and events for the year, along with details of the first APA members meeting, in the coming weeks; this will be emailed to you and later published on our website. Our first members meeting will give us a chance to expand on the themes listed above and help you ensure that you maximise and enjoy the benefit of your membership.

So please keep an eye on your emails and our website for the following:

1) The date of our Welcome to 2018 members meeting.

2) Our schedule of events for the first part of the year.