Hegarty to open Festival of Marketing with a creativity keynote
Sir John Hegarty will deliver the opening keynote at Festival of Marketing 2026 on 14 October at The Brewery in London, under the theme Raise the Bar.
News
Advertising and marketing news: the campaigns, rulings, appointments and numbers worth knowing this week.
Smalls makes ‘cat’ a personality type in New York campaign
Smalls drops the endline for a fill-in-the-blank system: solitude is cat, read receipts is cat. The in-house campaign runs on murals and wheatpaste across New York.
Stella Artois pours into The Gentlemen for Netflix’s first AB InBev deal
Stella Artois is the first brand partner for Netflix's The Gentlemen and the first multi-market Netflix and AB InBev deal, with a Theo James and David Beckham film by GUT Amsterdam.
Manchester City Women get their own brand, built with Nomad Studio
Manchester City Women launched a distinct visual identity on 3 September under a platform called It Takes a City, developed with sports branding specialists Nomad Studio.
FTC sues Amazon over alleged secret ad auction surcharge
The FTC and 22 states allege Amazon added an undisclosed charge to its Sponsored Products auctions from 2019. Amazon denies it and is contesting the case.
Sports Direct calls ASA “out of touch” after RRP ad ban
The ASA has banned a Sports Direct listing that showed a Puma top at £17 against a £45 RRP. Frasers Group is contesting the ruling and the test behind it.
Volvo’s new safety ad doesn’t show a single Volvo
Volvo's new film borrows the showroom walkaround format, then pixellates every car in it, because none of them are Volvos. They just carry safety systems Volvo invented and gave away.
Brands push influencer spend into their econometric models
Rightmove CMO Matt Bushby says influencer activity is now inside the portal's marketing mix model and showing brilliant long and short-term effects. Asahi calls creators a main brand building channel.
Ikea Sweden hides the real mess behind its own billboards
Ikea's Tidy Billboards look like standard furniture ads from the front. Behind them sits a wall of storage boxes stuffed with toys, clothes and old records.
The Entertainer hires John Lewis Christmas architect Craig Inglis
Craig Inglis joins Teal Group, owner of The Entertainer and Addo Play, as group chief customer officer on 7 September, taking charge of customer, marketing, licensing and brand.
Hovis puts £4m behind first campaign under ABF ownership
Hovis has launched a £4m national push for "Strength Baked In", its first big campaign since Associated British Foods completed its takeover in July.
Fewer than half of brands have a defined effectiveness function
Marketing Week's Language of Effectiveness 2026, run with Kantar and Google, finds 46.1% of 630 brand-side marketers work somewhere effectiveness is clearly owned.