July 20th, 2021
ACT Responsible to launch the first Global Survey about Corporate Responsibility in the Advertising Industry.
The goal of the survey is to collect information on how agencies embrace their corporate
responsibilities as economic, social and environmental actors in order to reveal the state of the
industry’s ‘Responsibility Programs’ and create a benchmark for future progress.
Corporate Responsibility has become more relevant than ever. Between the climate change
urgency, the context of social polarisation and the current pandemic, Corporate Responsibility
has taken a predominant place in advertising, as exemplified by the 2021 Cannes Lions Grand
Prix (32 out of 36 were awarded to ‘responsible’ campaigns).
“In the last decade, many agencies have developed CR programs internally and for clients. After
analyzing some of the reports, we realized that focuses vary considerably from one agency to
another and from one country to another, covering all aspects of CR issues. Therefore, we believe
now is the right time to assess how Corporate Responsibility is evolving across the advertising
industry, and propose a benchmark based on this global report.” – Hervé de Clerck, ACT
Responsible Founder and Dreamleader.
By assessing past and current CR practices in agencies around the world, ACT Responsible aims
to highlight the good practices in place, and, with the help of all the Advertising community,
provide feedback and guidelines on how to take the next step. In order to collect this information,
an online survey is to be launched, for all willing agencies around the world to complete.
As industry pioneers in social and environmental responsibility, ACT Responsible mission is to
inspire, promote and unite the advertising industry on corporate responsibility issues, getting it to
walk the talk and take action on what is essential to the survival of our planet, our society, our
industry, our companies, our brands, our people.
The survey is developed with the participation of ACT Advisory Board including the International
Advertising Association (IAA), AdForum, Havas Group, Interpublic Group (IPG), Publicis Groupe,
WPP Group, Anomaly, FCB, Grey Group, McCann Worldgroup, TBWA Worldwide, and
Wunderman Thompson, with the support of the American Association of Advertising Agencies
(4A’s) and the French Association of Communication Agencies (AACC). The survey will be
launched in September and powered by Nielsen Co. We call out to all representatives of the
industry who wish to join us in this process to participate in this project in order to make it as
comprehensive as possible.
