Advertising Association launches brand campaign ahead of Cannes Lions trade mission
News – Cannes Lions preview
The Advertising Association (AA) has today launched an international brand campaign, ‘UK Advertising. Where Creativity Works’, designed to champion the sector’s global exports following a record-breaking £19.4bn economic performance in 2025.
The campaign also marks the evolution of the AA’s exports arm to ‘UK Advertising Growth Group’, and is delivered with support from the UK Government’s Department for Business and Trade.
Speaking at the launch, Sir Chris Bryon, minister of state for trade policy, said that, as the second-biggest advertising exporter in the world, Britain’s advertising industry should “blow your own trumpet”.
He added that if there’s anything the Government can do to help the sector, “we 100% stand by your side”.
The campaign will make its international debut later this month at Cannes Lions, where the AA will lead a Government-backed trade mission to the festival bringing together agencies, production houses, media owners, and tech firms in a drive to secure new global revenue via roundtables and a presence at the festival’s Empower Cafe.
It will then be deployed across future international events and trade missions to provide a unified global presence for the industry.
Stephen Woodford, CEO of the AA, said that UK advertising has “never been a more powerful economic engine” and that the campaign “gives us the perfect visual launchpad to showcase our unique proposition on the world stage”.
He added: “We are calling on all businesses looking to scale globally to join the UK Advertising workstream.
“Cannes Lions is just the beginning of a year-round mission to turn UK creative excellence into international commercial results.”
The rebrand debuted at Outernet London on 15 June, the first time a UK business sector has used the venue’s exhibition space in this way, and used its immersive screens to visualise the campaign.
At the event, Simon Cook, CEO of Cannes Lions, also announced the launch of a creativity accelerator programme, in partnership with the AA.
Cook advocated for creativity as “one of the most powerful drivers when it comes to growth for businesses” and suggested that the countries that will be successful in the future “won’t simply be those with the greatest capital, or necessarily the most groundbreaking technology, but those that deliberately build the talent, the institutions, the capability and, let’s face it, the conditions that allow creativity to become a sustained driver of economic growth.”
The UK Advertising rebrand was developed by VCCP, its global content creation studio, Girl&Bear, and digital experience agency, Bernadette. The creative concept was built around modular graphic tiles, each representing the diverse blend of talent, innovation, and creative disciplines that form the UK’s modern advertising ecosystem.