The Advertising Association promotes the role and rights of responsible advertising and its value to people, society, businesses and the economy. We represent UK advertisers, agencies and brands on behalf of the entire industry, acting as the connection between industry professionals and the politicians and policy-makers.

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The Advertising Association focuses on major industry and policy areas that have huge ramifications on UK advertising. This section contains our work around Brexit, HFSS and gambling advertising, data and e-privacy, trust, the digital charter and our Industrial Strategy campaigns.

Credos is the advertising industry’s independent think tank. It produces research, evidence and reports into the impact and effectiveness of and public and political response to advertising on behalf of UK advertisers in order to enable the industry to make informed decisions.

Front Foot is our industry’s member network of over 50 businesses across UK advertising. It aims to promote the role of responsible advertising and its value to people, society and the economy through a coalition of senior leaders from advertisers, agencies and media owners.

We run a number of events throughout the year, from our annual LEAD summit to the Media Business Course and regular breakfast briefings for our members. We are also the official UK representative for the world’s biggest festival of creativity – Cannes Lions.

MEMBER CONTENT

The whole picture: How advertising portrays a diverse Britain.

Representation in Advertising

The advertising industry has a responsibility to be as representative of the wider population as possible. Without representation, there can be no authenticity, which is at the heart of effective communication. In this report, Credos takes a look at how diverse the UK advertising industry really is.

The diversity and size of the UK’s population is growing. Naturally, an increasing number of advertisements reflect this, and while there are those who think advertising should be required to reflect the UK’s ethnic mix more accurately, we think that advertisers should want to. It’s not only good for people, it’s good for business.

“The Whole Picture is the advertising industry’s response to changes in the ethnic profile of the UK. In this report we’ve attempted to reflect the views of a diverse population and give guidance to the industry on how best to reflect – and engage with – people from different backgrounds”

– Karen Fraser, Director, Credos.

But reflecting diversity in an accurate and meaningful way can be a challenge. This research, by advertising’s think tank Credos, hopes to shine a light on how advertisers can do just that. It asked people from different ethnic backgrounds what they currently think of diversity in UK advertising, and how we can work to improve it.

The report unpacks findings across how Britain is changing, how people define identity, diversity in public life, why brands should care, reflections on UK advertising today, and how to talk about diversity. And you can read it all below.

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"The whole picture is the advertising industry's response to the changes in the ethnic profile of the UK"

Karen Fraser Director, Credos

Nearly 90% of the advertising industry is white

78%
of respondents believe ethnicity is one of the top three indicators of diversity
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