Steve Harrison

what happened? Did the industry lose its nerve? Did data replace instinct? Did creativity become optimization? Or are we simply romanticizing a golden age that never really existed? To find out, I spoke to some of advertising's sharpest minds.

Steve Harrison spent decades defending the art of great advertising and warning about what happens when the industry forgets how persuasion actually works.

Dave Trott helped create some of the most influential advertising Britain has ever produced and built an entire philosophy around the importance of being noticed.

From his early days at Gold Green as Trott to his work at countless major ad agencies around the world, Paul Grubb is a global creative director in constant demand.

As the corporate advertising business grew and bloated agencies acquired their competitors, a void formed between the people at the top and the people on the front lines.

Filling that void were layers of bureaucrats, managers with protocols and their own private agendas that sometimes didn't match the purpose of the business.

And while we're on the subject of purpose, let's discuss the man who blew this case wide open, the whistleblower, Steve Harrison.

Steve Harrison's latest book, Adland's Progressive Gaze, is an expose and critique of how progressive ideology, social activism and DEI practices have overtaken the UK advertising industry, leading to a decline in commercial effectiveness and a disconnection from regular consumers.