How to redress agencies' London-centricity

Like most other things in British life, decisions about advertising tend to happen in London for advertising that will be seen beyond London, by the 85% of the UK population outside the capital – a new project delves deep into the forgotten majority.

A new WARC Best Practice piece, based on the findings of a new project, Meet the 85%, looks into an attempt to give an unbiased view into the majority of people who encounter advertising.

Why it matters

A crucial part of a strategist’s job should be spending time with and understanding their audiences. This means getting outside of London’s marketing bubble and spending time with a wide spectrum of UK consumers.

Takeaways

• An after-work drink in a pub in Newcastle will glean vastly different insights than an after-work drink in one of London’s media-centric Soho pubs.
• Effective strategy is more than reading PDFs or watching a research brief, and it’s more than focusing on niches, outliers and the trend-setters.
• Strategists will benefit from becoming documentarians. This involves spending time with audiences face-to-face in their environment and documenting their lives in a natural and unbiased way.