Advertising Week saw Exterion host The Big London Debate – a follow up to their “All Eyes on London” initiative last year – with LBC’s Nick Ferrari in the chair for a lively canter through the capital’s challenges and USPs.
107 languages are spoken in the capital, we were told, and Michelle Dix, managing director of planning, TFL, said we should expect the capital to grow to the size of two Birminghams by 2050, and with a 25% increase in people travelling daily.
Much was made of luxury brands and non-doms too. Richard Morris, managing director, Vizeum, spoke of an “influential audience that works for both UK and global brands,” but warned that the dangers ahead lie in the capital’s demographic profile changing.
“The younger creative community is attractive to our clients, we don’t want them priced out – we would lose both an advertising target market and a fantastic creative hotbed,” he said.
Style guru, Peter York, felt London was two communities now – the central post code districts “broadly owned by foreigners and places fit for a non-dom to live,” and then the rest of it which is “more like the rest of the country.”
York saw London in a very strong position globally – in the next ten years New York may fall behind London, he said, but Shanghai will become major competition.
However, York said that “London combines everything – for better or worse,” and he saw no prospect of bankers moving anywhere else in Europe – managing a quick jab at the French too.
“If you took [bankers’] taxes up to 90% they still wouldn’t go to Frankfurt. Paris is a charming backwater.”
