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, media owners and tech companies 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.

Free Trade Agreements

/ July 30th 2020 / Noa Cohen
Brexit and Trade Policy

Since leaving the EU on 31 January 2020, the UK has been able to negotiate, sign and ratify new trade agreements. These agreements can only come into force after 31 December 2020. Until then, EU FTAs continue to apply to the UK.

In addition to the EU, the UK Government is prioritising the formation of trade agreements with the US, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. It is also working to roll over existing EU trade agreements that the UK was party to. It has also signalled its intention to  join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). The CPTPP is a trade agreement between 11 countries that span the Asia Pacific region and represents the third-largest free-trade area in the world after NAFTA and the European Single Market.

The UK has already negotiated several roll-over agreements with countries and trading blocs including South Korea, the Southern African Customs Union and Mozambique (SACUM), Israel, and Switzerland. You can see the full list here. Further negotiations are underway with numerous other countries such as Canada, Egypt and Mexico (see more here) but if agreements are not completed by 31 December 2020, the UK will lose the benefits of the EU FTAs and trade with other WTO members will default to WTO terms.