Taking the Initiative: A Guide to Advertising’s Campaigning Side
Does the advertising and media industry like anything better than a taskforce? Well, it can’t say no to a cross-industry initiative, and it loves an action group.
Collectively, industry initiatives paint a thorough and revealing picture of exactly where the industry would like to see change, what it cares about, where the money is getting lost, and what it fears might get unpalatably regulated if those on the inside don’t get on top of it first.
Every trade association, of course, has its own set of campaigns and issue-focused committees. And then there are the collaborative drives, the stand-alone bodies and the government-driven working groups. Here are some of the key ones:
Ad Net Zero
The purpose: to help tackle the climate emergency by reducing ad-related emissions
Ad Net Zero is the advertising industry’s drive to reduce the carbon impact of developing, producing and running advertising to real net zero. Its action points focus squarely on methods of reducing emissions right across the wider advertising industry, starting with business operations and following on with ad production, media planning and buying, awards, events and a broader push to use the the cultural influence and creative power of the advertising industry to drive positive change in every sector of the economy. Ad Net Zero is supported, at least in principle, by every holdco, industry body and tech giant of note.
To learn more about the industry's climate impact, check out our
sustainability page.
Advertising Unlocked
The purpose: to hook smart kids into advertising
The IPA’s advertising open day sees agencies across the UK open their doors to the next generation of talent, providing students with a window into adland through workshops, interactive discussions, office tours, and creative challenges. Last year, 77 advertising and media agencies hosted about 2,000 schoolchildren across 14 towns and cities.
AI Taskforce
The purpose: to get the best out of AI in advertising without letting it burn the house down
The Advertising Association’s AI Taskforce is far from the only AI Taskforce in the world - AI being the kind of opportunity/challenge/existential horror threat that seems to call for as many task forces as you can drum up. UK advertising’s AI squad was established in September 2023 to develop a cohesive industry approach towards the technology. It is co-chaired by Google and VCCP, with its participants drawn from the Advertising Association’s wider membership. Its inaugural report, published last summer, includes a 12-point checklist for responsible AI adoption.
All In
The purpose: to improve inclusion and representation in the UK advertising business
All In is the industry’s workforce inclusivity initiative, set by the Advertising Association, the IPA and ISBA and more than justified by troubling insights from its own census. These include the fact that 29% of women believe that gender hinders career progression; 30% of black people are likely to leave the industry due to lack of inclusion and experience of discrimination; and 20% of people in advertising and marketing are working class, compared to 40% of the total population. [source: All In Census 2023)
The All In action plan takes aim at discrimination and inequality due to race, gender, disability, class, age, mental health and sexual orientation, and as of March 2025 its census is now running for the third time, having last time drawn more than 18,500 responses. Initiatives such as the Advertising Association’s BRiM (Black Representation in Marketing) working group sit within the All In hub.
Online Advertising Taskforce
The purpose: to protect the kids and tackle harmful forces in the online ecosystem
The Online Advertising Taskforce, first convened in summer 2023 and guaranteed to operate until at least the end of 2025, was set up as a collaboration between government and the advertising sector to address illegal harms and the protection of children in relation to online advertising.
It breaks down its efforts via six groups - Age Assurance, Gold Standard, Influencer Marketing, Information sharing, Research and Intermediary and Platform Principles (IPP), IPP maintains a set of principles to which major companies operating in the digital advertising supply chain agree to adhere in support of the ASA’s regulation of online advertisements.
UK Advertising Exports Group
The purpose: to make all the other countries buy our advertising talent
The UK is a creative and digital innovation hub and operates a significant trade surplus, exporting more than £7.9bn annually, according to ONS figures. Founded by the Advertising Association, IPA, APA, BPMA, Creative Industries Council and the Department for Business and Trade, the UK Advertising Exports Group promotes British adtech, creative, production and post-production, research and data companies around the world, and it has a report to prove it.
UKSAFC
The purpose: to stop all the money leaking out through ad fraud
Ad fraud is a global problem of mind-boggling scale, responsible for lost revenue of anywhere between $80bn and $120bn. The UK Stop Ad Funded Crime (UKSAFC) group was set up in 2023 to highlight the scale and threat of ad fraud in the UK, and to coordinate a multi-stakeholder response, with the parallel goal of creating a template other countries can adapt.
The UKSAFC’s taskforce (which includes advertising professionals, policymakers, technology providers and agencies) is seeking to encourage the Government to commission research into the definitive scale of advertising-funded crime, draw up a plan of action with the ad industry and ensure law enforcement agencies take the issue seriously. Recent campaigns include 2025’s Know Your Customer (KYC) initiative, which invites all players in the programmatic advertising supply chain to carry out due diligence checks on every company they deal with. Full disclosure: we do their press and comms.
