French association changes its name

On 18 April, UDA France announced its new name, “Union des marques” (brands association), at the first edition of the annual UDA conference on Brands and Efficiency (“# ÇA MARQUE”) in Paris.

During the event, UDA President and Accor Europe CEO, Franck Gervais, said: "What the member companies of Union des marques have in common is the belief in the value of brands. Every day we see the transformation of roles and functions involved in building them. These jobs cannot be summed up by the term ‘advertiser’ any more and thus changing the name of the association was necessary.”

The name change is also a reflection of recent initiatives led by the association to meet members’ needs with regards to industry topics that matter to them, including customer knowledge, innovation, reinvention of the marketing profession, creativity and efficiency.

The name change coincides with the launch of a new website and of three new initiatives:

• Brand Academy: a wide range of online training and courses in marketing and communications to meet brand owners’ skills and training needs. The programme is free to members and open to non-members for a fee.


• Third edition of the Creative Lab: Launched in December 2017, the Creative Lab is an open advertising contest that invites brands to be the “playground” for creative people. The objective is to restore the image of advertising in France and to demonstrate the link between creativity and efficiency in marketing communications. This initiative won a WFA President’s Award in Lisbon in March. The third edition will be held between April 26-May 26 with the participation of Axa, Carrefour, Chavroux (Savencia), Citroen, Elephant (Unilever), Nuxe and Orange. The winning creations will be unveiled on June 20^th during Cannes.


• Efficiency Reference: Aside from the inaugural annual conference on efficiency on April 18, Union des marques plan on launching a new platform soon for measuring effectiveness and efficiency of marketing communications. It is designed to support brand managers in evaluating the relevance, accuracy and efficiency of their communication activities. The platform will be operational this summer, open to all brands and will allow them to have a shared repository with all their partners.

For more information, please contact Union des marques.