The Future of Advertising…In One Afternoon- four hours of the best new thinking

Great to see so many members at the Regent Street Cinema on Tuesday 25th February  for an eclectic mix of future thinking:

Chloe Markowicz- Contagious Editor, gave us a thoughtful presentation on how advertising can address the quandary of being about selling stuff but without contributing to the climate crisis and presented useful answers.

Dino Myers-Lampety- Founder of The Barber Shop, helped us with understanding how production companies might access planning and other services when working direct for advertisers.

Alistair Thompson- The Head of Innovation at Epic Games, explained how their new innovation lab works- and its in Noho and APA members are welcome to visit to see how the development of the Unreal Engine creates exciting new possibilities for film making.

We then had an interview with Rebecca Rowntree,the Founder of the Podcast The Way Up interviewing the Channel 4 Head of Comedy, Fiona Mcdermott. Fiona was fascinating on the commissioning process and why they say yes and no to proposals they receive. A useful start for our plans to do more to help APA members looking to make programmes and films develop their potential.

Hermeti Balarin- ECD of Mother, spoke insightfully and entertainingly on how their IKEA Christmas spot came into being- an example of how for a brand a great script and great production can still provide huge value to a brand.

The Dallas Cowboys AR project- the most high profile AR project of 2019- was the subject of Alex Jenkins, the Creative Director from Nexus Studios presentation. It also won in our IDEAS awards– more to follow on that.

We finished on a high with the incomparable political commentator, Steve Richards, addressing the issue of political and economic stability- key to advertiser confidence. Do we have it or not? Broadly the answer is yes, for the moment but political stability is already under threat- and we can see where we will be returned to chaos, as tensions surface in Boris v Cummings and the UK’s approach to the Brexit negotiations- to start an argument before the negotiations even start.