WFA advertiser associations meet in Brussels

On 20 October, representatives of 23 national advertiser associations from five continents shared insights and ideas on how to address their members’ key priorities through leadership initiatives and added-value actions while growing their organisations.

The meeting was chaired by Ron Lund (ACA, Canada) and was co-hosted by the UBA Belgium leadership team, who kicked off the meeting with an overview of the association’s main activities and priorities.

WFA presented the findings of the recent NAC Growth Survey which found, among others, that media transparency, self-regulation, the value of advertising, viewability and ad fraud were the key themes of industry-wide leadership initiatives that have been launched or supported by NAC members in the last three years.



Building on the survey, NAC attendees worked in teams to identify game-changing ideas and actions for growth.

WFA also shared updates on the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into force in May 2018 and how it will impact advertiser associations’ members. UBA Belgium presented the actions taken by the association to tackle GDPR locally.

For the session on gender stereotypes in advertising, WFA gave an overview of the issues being tackled by UN Women-led Unstereotype Alliance (WFA is a founding member) and next steps. Jim Bechtold (ANA, US) and Shelley Zalis (The Female Quotient) shared some insights on the ANA-led #SeeHer initiative in the US which seeks to improve gender representation in advertising. ANA received a WFA President’s Award at this year’s Global Marketer Week in Toronto for this initiative.



On the future of the advertiser association, Jean-Luc Chétrit (UDA, France), Phil Smith (ISBA, UK) and Rodolfo León (ANDA, Peru) shared their plans and strategies to evolve their respective associations and drive sustainable growth.

Participating associations were:

• AAG Guatemala

• AAI Ireland

• ACA Canada

• AEA Spain

• ANA US

• ANDA Bolivia

• ANDA Colombia

• ANDA Peru

• ANFO Norway

• APAN Portugal

• ASA Switzerland

• BVA The Netherlands

• CAA Argentina

• GAM Morocco

• ISBA UK

• ML Finland

• RVD Turkey

• SA Sweden

• SAA Singapore

• SDE Greece

• UBA Belgium

• UDA France

• UPA Italy

Photos from the meeting can be viewed here. For a copy of the presentations, please contact Camelia.