UK advertising exported £18 billion in 2023. Most people have absolutely no idea.

International Trade Director for UK Advertising. People ask me what that means. The best way I can describe it is half a marketing director for UK Advertising and half an official events company for UK Advertising, in one very busy human form. We have a strong partnership with the UK Government's Department for Business and Trade, and part of my team's role is to show the UK Government the effect UK Advertising has globally, what that means to the UK economy. The other half is the events: showcase slots, speaking slots, networking events. The aim is to shine a spotlight on how good UK advertising is, the impact it has on brands worldwide, and to find the small opportunities that open up a new connection that we hope leads to new business.

We work with Credos, the industry think-tank. The research we launched at Cannes Lions in June 2024 showed that UK advertising exported £18 billion in 2023, a record, of which £3.4 billion was from the US alone. The US is the biggest market buying services from the UK.

Before we came out we launched a new partnership with Advertising Week and brought the largest UK delegation we'd ever taken. The Monday morning began with the most surreal experience I've had in my life: ringing the NASDAQ bell as UK Advertising. The first time UK Advertising had gone in with the Advertising Week team for that moment. You walk out and your image is on Times Square.

The centrepiece was the Leadership Reception at the British Residence. Last year I came as a guest of the team, met my now-colleague Rebecca at the consulate, and we had an honest conversation about what worked and what didn't, where the UK was showing up, and how we could show up more. That conversation seeded the idea of a VIP networking experience. We tested it this year. Over 100 guests, a mixture of UK Advertising Export Group members, their guests (clients and production agencies they work with), and US guests. It became the hottest ticket in town. We were turning people away at the door. Today, on day four, the feedback has been the conversations from last night: nobody left that room on their own.

The Leadership Icon Award is awarded under the banner of UK Advertising. The plan is to come back to New York every year on the Wednesday and host the same reception. The award goes to someone from either market who has helped strengthen the bridge between the UK and the US. It could be a CMO, an ad-tech leader, anyone genuinely building the link.

The first recipient is Matt Scheckner, or Lord Matt Scheckner, as he likes to be called. His colleague Lance described him as a human wrecking ball, and once Lance said it, it made absolute sense. Without Advertising Week, and without the vision Matt had twenty years ago when he set up the New York event and then brought it to London, the UK as an industry would not have an event in London that celebrates both the economic and cultural impact our sector has. He has embraced this role and the industry as a whole. When I use the word advertising, I mean it in the widest possible sense: production, virtual production, talent agencies. He has helped create the enduring bridge of friendship that lets us come to the US each year, take part in this festival, meet clients, and host UK people back.

Julian Douglas, International Chief Executive Officer of VCCP, is the chair of UKAEG (the rotating role lasts two years). VCCP and Coffee & TV have made New York their second home. Propeller is another example. Billion Dollar Boy. The list goes on.

Nobody seems to have the same model for going global. Some agencies, VCCP and Coffee & TV among them, open US offices (Coffee & TV launched their office last week). Others manage to work in the US from London, which has become easier since the pandemic normalised video calls. Experience12 is a UK events company specialised in pop culture and gaming; not the kind of brand that lands on the Advertising Association's desk by default, but very much our world. They come out with us as a route to connect with brands, understand consumer insights in the market, and build from there.

We did research with PwC on the main drivers behind the global success of UK advertising. The first is talent: a diverse talent pool from around the world, which gives us a real advantage in understanding cultural nuances for different markets. A campaign rarely translates verbatim across borders, and that fluency is in our arsenal. Second, the time zone: as one side of the world wakes up we can service them, as the other side closes we can still cover. Third, price point. That's something we're researching more deeply, particularly across production and PR, to understand the effect on what UK businesses are doing abroad.

We hosted a networking lunch in the CMO Lounge this week with the Marketing Society. The Lounge is normally closed to all but CMOs; we were allowed to take it for an hour. We invited UK companies in the delegation and US members, ran a 60-second pitch-your-life game, and what Sophie and I observed is that the conversations didn't stop when we blew the whistle. I was the official photographer for the event, and most of the pictures I took are of people on their phones connecting on LinkedIn (nobody hands out business cards any more). My text to colleagues was: people are really networking. I go to many networking events, and many of them are quiet, or don't have the energy you need. For one hour in the CMO Lounge, we created the energy in the room.

I stayed for an hour after the event ended because there were queues of people wanting to come and talk to us. Most had heard about the previous night's reception and were testing whether they could be on the list next year. We told everyone the list would be even stricter next year.

If you've got a base in the US, Advertising Week can work in a different way. For someone travelling from the UK, treat it as the hook. I'm going to be in town for the week, are you about, we'd love to meet. Have the list of prospects and clients ready before you arrive. Going to the talks and the networking lunches is part of it, and we help everyone prepare; this year we ran an event on Framestore's rooftop with the Advertising Week team where they presented how to use the week to your advantage.

Don't treat the week as I'm going to sit in talks for four days. Reach out to the clients you already have and the prospects you want to win, and let the event surface more opportunities. For us coming from the UK, we know UK consumer insights. So I make sure I go to two talks a day specifically for US consumer insight, so when we are doing UK Advertising's own marketing campaigns (especially around B2B), I have those insights ready. The rules don't translate from one market to the other.

Coffee & TV. When they joined, they were considering South by Southwest in Austin, where we have a big venue called UK House and run four days of programming. I told them they should come, there's a film element alongside brand and advertising. Fast forward a year and they've opened an office in Austin. They now have a great success story in the US. Austin isn't the obvious destination, but it's the next Silicon Valley, and it's a fantastic West Coast home. Coffee & TV are one of the companies that were working all around the world from London but very much got their feet in the ground in the US through that path.

This morning we announced a partnership with a Saudi festival called Othar. We will be the first country to partner with them. It came off the noise we made at Cannes Lions this year (we are the noisiest country at Cannes in how we brand ourselves). The Othar team came to a global dinner I host on the Carleton Beach. The Othar dates are 3rd to 5th November. We're running webinars in advance because we know it's an emerging market and there are real questions, including how the finance system works. We're upskilling the industry on that market regardless of UK Advertising Export Group membership.

I come back from New York at the weekend. On Monday I go into a global meeting about Cannes Lions 2025. Tuesday and Wednesday we host 50 Chinese delegates from the advertising industry at Chelsea Football Club, with access to the director's box, including the CMOs of Heya and Yili (one of the world's top five dairy brands).

Reach out to me or my colleague Kiana. If we don't respond straight away it's because we're hosting an event somewhere. LinkedIn is where most people reach me. You don't need to be five years into a global strategy. We are a home for businesses considering going global as well as those already operating internationally.

The standout talk for me was on the Monday, Propeller's session on how to pitch a story to journalists, with Fast Company and Ad Week on the panel. Mary moderated. When you're as busy as we are, sitting and listening to editors explain how they want stories to come in, what they like, what they don't, and the process they're going through in 2024 with fast news and high volume, was genuinely valuable. People were scribbling in their notebooks. They still do.