It was a Brit who invented the World Wide Web. It was also here that the first SMS was sent. We created the world’s first commercial jet airliner, as well as the Christmas cracker. Innovation and invention are core to our national identity, and our days of leading global advancements are far from over.
As global competition around technology and services heats up, we need to double down if we want to retain our status as inventors and change-makers. Today, the UK commands the third largest AI market in the world, after the US and China. Just last week, the government announced a major set of reforms and investments to put AI at the heart of our national renewal.
It’s an exciting time to be working in Britain. My view is that businesses must capitalise on this strength to ensure that, in partnership with our friends in the US, we can truly claim to be the world’s innovation superpower. But to do so, we all need to work together as businesses, public sector, NGOs, academic institutions and more. After all, we are at our best when we collaborate.
Leading academic partners
Our commercial offerings are strengthened when we ground them in academic rigour. The UK is lucky enough to benefit from a multitude of fantastic universities – including three in the world’s top ten – with huge collaborative potential.
For example, at WPP Media we partnered with the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School when we set out to explore the specific factors that drive consumer choices and exactly how brands can influence those decisions. We called this study ‘How Humans Decide’. We leveraged our database of 1.2 million purchase journeys to take a deep dive into how consumer choices are made. Together, we found that when people explore new categories or make a purchase decision, they do so with a predetermined (and short) set of brands in mind.
This means that brands are more critical to success than ever. Without an existing brand preference, you’re not even on the ‘maybe’ list for most people. As we enter an age where AI agents will start to make purchase recommendations and decisions for us, this becomes even more important. When an agent makes a recommendation, you need to be able to trust the brand it suggests.
Meanwhile, Bristol University has built the UK’s most powerful supercomputer by collaborating with governmental departments, HPE, Nvidia and Arm – ultimately offering a supercomputer in the top 15 worldwide in terms of speed. This will empower the UK to lead on tackling domestic issues like NHS waiting lists, and global ones like adapting to and mitigating climate change.
Cross-industry collaboration
It’s not just universities that businesses should partner with. Competing on a global scale means working with each other in our industries.
At WPP Media we joined up with British media owners Reach, Blis, Mobsta, Captify, JCDecaux, 5 and Sky to help us to understand the role of location to British identity with our study Shaping the Nation. This helped us see that even the smallest regional differences matter – and people are passionate about them. On the very important topic of whether you call a bread roll a “bun,” a “bap” or a “cob”, there is a big range across local areas. These nuances shape who we are, and therefore how brands should communicate with us. It’s called a barm cake where I come from, by the way!
Knowing that the North West has a different lexicon to the North East reflects the high level of local understanding most of us want from businesses we buy from. However, Shaping the Nation also told us that a third of us don’t feel well represented in advertising. Insights like these can inform every brand as to the value of local, contextual understanding – in the UK and every market.
Another fantastic example of British collaboration in action, once again from my own industry, is in ISBA’s Origin initiative, in which close to 70 organisations support the reach measurement of different media channels. Although part of a global initiative, the UK launched its version first and continues to add new channels to its reporting capabilities. Similarly, our iconic British broadcasters are coming together to ensure smaller businesses can advertise on TV. In coming together, we can ensure the entire ecosystem benefits – a statement which is just as true across all British industries.
Britain has a proud heritage of innovation, of moving the world forwards. As a British headquartered business it’s important to us, and to me, that it stays that way. Progress requires collaboration across every type of industry if we are to remain a hotbed of innovation, investment and discovery. So British businesses – consider where you can collaborate to drive invention or insight. The future of British industry is bright in the AI era; it’s up to us to double down on that strength where we can.
It was a Brit who invented the World Wide Web. It was also here that the first SMS was sent. We created the world’s first commercial jet airliner, as well as the Christmas cracker. Innovation and invention are core to our national identity, and our days of leading global advancements are far from over.
As global competition around technology and services heats up, we need to double down if we want to retain our status as inventors and change-makers. Today, the UK commands the third largest AI market in the world, after the US and China. Just last week, the government announced a major set of reforms and investments to put AI at the heart of our national renewal.
It’s an exciting time to be working in Britain. My view is that businesses must capitalise on this strength to ensure that, in partnership with our friends in the US, we can truly claim to be the world’s innovation superpower. But to do so, we all need to work together as businesses, public sector, NGOs, academic institutions and more. After all, we are at our best when we collaborate.
