Celebrating a Scottish Success Story

Radiocentre CEO Siobhan Kenny marked the outstanding success of the £1.7bn Scottish ad industry at an event in Edinburgh and officially launched the Advertising Association’s ‘AAccelerate for Growth’ pilot scheme

Siobhan Kenny, CEO at Radiocentre, spoke at a special showcase event at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh hosted by the Advertising Association. The event celebrated the success of the nation’s £1.7bn ad industry, the creative talent that lies behind it, and looked at how advertising can help SMEs grow and add further impetus to the Scottish economy.

The event also saw the official launch of the Advertising Association’s ‘AAccelerate for Growth’ pilot programme to help SMEs advertise more. Research shows that only 43% of SMEs in the UK advertise and they constitute just 18% of UK ad spend. The impact of advertising for SMEs is impressive, particularly where they undertake multi-channel campaigns – £1 spent on advertising can benefit an SME eight times as much as a larger business. If SMEs were able to raise their exports just to the EU average, it would mean an extra £40bn boost to the UK economy.

Scotland has a buoyant SME ecosystem and a great infrastructure that makes it an excellent location for the pilot. The pilot aims to find 10 special SMEs from across Scotland to undertake multi-channel campaigns for a specific period. The businesses will receive a bespoke four-week advertising campaign at the end of which the aim is to understand the impact of multichannel advertising and its important role in growing the business.

Siobhan Kenny, Chief Executive at Radiocentre, said: “The AAccelerate for Growth programme provides smaller businesses with a huge opportunity that will allow them to harness the power of advertising, the ultimate catalyst for growth – something which is currently perceived as unattainable to many businesses. Scottish SMEs are already the backbone of the economy, and just a little extra assistance could propel them towards realising their true potential for growth.”