Why the creative industry suffers when we overlook talent outside of major cities
Creators speak about who gets left out when brands only focus on major cities like London, and how this neglect has ramifications throughout the creative industry
It's 2023 — and yet agencies in the UK creative industries are still overlooking creative talent outside of London. Content creative and multi-disciplinary artist Marshall Lawrence knows this first-hand, having forged a freelance career. In this excerpt from the D&AD Festival panel One size doesn’t fit all, they tell us how the London-centric nature of the advertising and cultural industries makes it harder for young people trying to break into the industry. The result is that younger people are often "taken advantage of,” being paid in exposure and unable to afford the initial outlays of travel and accommodation needed to work in London. "It is pretty impossible," they argue.
The panel also emphasises the untapped potential of cities outside major hubs like London. Seun Areoye, editor at GAUCHOWORLD and copywriter at Amplify, asks industry leaders to reflect on which audiences they're ignoring by focusing only these cities. This is important from both a commercial and moral standpoint, he argues, as well as a site of potential growth, reminding us that, "there is so much opportunity there; lots of cities aren't used to being the focus of a campaign or product.”
