Reimagining Advertising: What could industry transformation look like?
Purpose Disruptors and the Royal Society of the Arts (RSA) have convened representatives from parts of the advertising ecosystem — including brand NatWest, advertising agency AMV DDBO, media agency OMD, media owner Channel 4, awards body D&AD and insight agency Kantar — to embark on a 6-month journey to reimagine the future of the industry, supported by research partner Kings College London.
This blog post is part 3 of a series, following on from part 1: our introduction and part 2: reflections from our first two sessions. It summarises where the journey has taken participants since the summer break (sessions three and four) and brings to life some of the exploratory techniques we’ve used to think into the future.
During sessions 1 and 2 of this project, we wrapped our heads around systems thinking, and in particular understanding the advertising system and all its boundaries, complexities, interconnections and dynamic relations.
In sessions 3 and 4 — we turned up the fun element.
Session 3 — Nurturing Visions
Our 12 trailblazers gathered in the beautiful Camley Street Natural Park — a pocket of nature paradise in the heart of Kings Cross. The perfect spot to germinate ideas — with guest facilitator, coach & social change expert, Alaina Crystal.
Over the summer the group had been given time to think of ‘points of possibility’ — something we explored in our first sessions where we learnt how change is possible: over time, old patterns fracture, and new ones emerge — giving points of possibility.
Our provocation for change agents was to consider over the summer: How can we intervene in the system to promote some patterns, and undermine others?
We asked them to spot ‘points of possibility’ — a chinks in the system or emergent patterns that might open up a window of opportunity to create change.
We then took this a step further.
Sometimes it helps to imagine something desirable, a preferred state of the system in the future, and work your way back. Some futures folks call this technique ‘backcasting’ — and it makes sense. When we get bogged down in the now, thinking about all the realities of the current system (and how this would get in the way of progress), our thinking is limited. If we can project our imaginations forward to possible alternative futures (however implausible), working your way back gets easier.
So we set 4 provocations:
Imagine: An industry that’s built on collaboration, not competition
Imagine: An industry that makes moderation, not overconsumption, aspirational
Imagine: An industry that works only with what already exists, with no more extraction
Imagine: An industry that operates in service of people and planet, not corporations
And challenged the group to create news headlines and visuals to bring each of these future scenarios to life. Because when we play we imagine better.
By the end of the session, the group had generated nearly 100 ideas for how to shift towards an industry in service of life.
Takeaways from Session 3
Points of possibility are all around us. From inverting the role of advertising as a driver of degrowth, to redefining creative excellence, to recognising the power of relationships between change agents — there are multiple ways to intervene in the system. We need to be open to what’s possible.
Starting from the future and working our way back can be liberating. There are so many ways to experiment and think into the future. Inviting play and fun was a way to bring these worlds to life.
Post session 3 — Mini briefing
After the third session, we were swimming in post-its with ideas ranging from the plausible to the wildly ambitious (Good Life theme park, anybody?) The cohort had a few weeks to land before reconvening for an audio-based mini-briefing, inviting them to reflect on the ideas that were keeping them up at night. Before session 4, each participant spent their own time developing preferred ideas, and considering the pain points in their working environment that might hinder their evolution.
Session 4 — Seeding Experiments
We met for our fourth session on an overcast day in London’s beautiful (and well-hidden) Garden Museum, neighbouring Lambeth Palace.
After the child-like fun and spontaneity of our Nurturing Visions (using imagination) session 3, this session called for a rather more grown-up approach, with preferred ideas articulated, ready to evolve and stress-test. This was run by expert facilitators Andy Thornton and Jhanvi Singh from the RSA.
Andy and Jhanvi introduced some useful tools (with suitably bizarre names) to help the cohort share their preferred ideas and put them in context: firstly, the Futures Cone, which helps situate ideas on a spectrum of probable to preposterous; next up, the PESTLE wheel, which supports you to consider the potential consequences of your idea across Political, Environmental, Social, Technological, Legal and Economic spheres. Both of these tools help interrogate the contours of a new idea and its implications.
As the ideas were taking shape, the next stage was to begin to parse out single experimental actions — or seeds — that could bring the idea closer to fruition from where participants stand. On specially designed Seed Cards, everyone then had time to develop the seeds that could be planted for their specific idea. In the spirit of collaboration, everyone was then invited to move two seats along, and cultivate the seeds of anothers’ idea.
We repeated this process until natural synergies between seeds and ideas came to the surface. By the time participants returned to their original seed card, they found it shaped, built and annotated by multiple benevolent others, all bringing their unique perspectives from their place within the system.
Takeaways from Session 4
Let the heart & gut play a role in determining which ideas are worth pursuing. Rather than only developing the plausible or watertight ideas, we were all encouraged to pursue the ones keeping us up at night — leading to a more diverse and vibrant mix of possibilities.
It helps to become a “sponsor” for others’ ideas as well as your own. Rather than just nurturing our own ideas, the process encouraged us to raise them all as a village, fostering a real sense of creative collaboration.
So, what now?
Well in the next, final session, we move towards operationalising these new ideas: giving them the best conditions to take root within the existing industry ecosystem.
We’ll be wrapping up the overarching reflections from the experience. And in the New Year, we’ll share our findings for the industry to learn from this process.
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About Purpose Disruptors
Purpose Disruptors are advertising reformers, catalysing the advertising industry’s climate transition towards halving emissions by 2030. Our vision is of an advertising industry transformed in service to a thriving future. In support of this vision, we work across five pillars: leadership, community, education, measurement and creativity. We believe that change begins at a personal level, our projects are designed to help people connect to the climate crisis on a deep personal level to create systemic change.
Our work is being recognised within the advertising industry and beyond. Recent achievements include our sell out Advertising Earth Day Summit at the Tate Modern attended by over 200 industry leaders and Advertised Emissions work adopted by the UN as best leadership practice featured at COP27. Previously we launched the first ever documentary about advertising, consumption and climate change, our ‘Good Life 2030 documentary’, at COP26. We also won a Purpose Award for our community creative campaign ‘The Great Reset’ in 2021, and all 3 Co-founders were recognised by Forbes as 43 people changing advertising for the climate and as Campaign Magazine’s Trailblazers Top 10 in 2020.
About Good Life 2030 (A Purpose Disruptors Project)
When it comes to climate change, there are many initiatives in the industry-defining what we must move away from and offering tools to make the existing system better. What is lacking is a positive, inspiring vision of what the industry could become. Informed by the growing field of emerging futures practices, this project is unique in its focus on long-term, Third Horizon systems change. As a complement to incremental (Second Horizon) initiatives and activities, Good Life 2030 creates the conditions for industry leaders to imagine radical transformation in a further future and take action towards this today.
We believe that new compelling visions of the future are needed, informed by everyday people, in order to facilitate the necessary culture, behaviour and system change required to halve carbon emissions by 2030. Good Life 2030 aims to support the industry in reappraising its role, developing a new understanding of what a Good Life means, and reconfiguring itself in service to this new Good Life.
About Royal Society of Arts (RSA)
We are the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). The RSA’s vision is a world where everyone can fulfil their potential and contribute to more resilient, rebalanced, and regenerative futures. Our mission — Design for Life — enables people, places, and the planet to flourish in harmony. We do this by uniting people and ideas in collective action to unlock opportunities to regenerate our world.
We don’t just generate ideas; we act on them. The RSA has been turning world-leading ideas into world-changing actions for more than 260 years. Our research and innovation work has changed the hearts and minds of generations of people. Central to all our work are our mission-aligned Fellows; a global network of 31,000 innovators and changemakers.
