On the 19th September at 7pm, over 400 people walked in to the Electric Ballroom in Camden and demonstrated that we work in a very special, amazing industry. The reason was a devastating fire at Grenfell tower. The inspiration for the event came from one person, David Grainger. A month later and some frantic but effective campaigning and the team had raised 70K+, filled 70 tables and created a moment in time not to be forgotten.

The night itself was magical, friends and colleagues from across the industry, agencies both media and creative, publishers, tech firms all misled into this electric evening of music, emotions and love. Advertising is sometimes accused of being lightweight, pointless, not a serious industry but I was so proud of what we achieved in such a short period of time.

More importantly I feel like it was a release to be able to talk and write about something positive and uplifting in relation to the industry. So often the headlines are negative and I have written before that they will be the death of the industry as talent stops wanting to be part of it. This night however we saw the great side to our business, the side that shows we can react fast, that we care and that we are capable of doing good. We should not lose sight of that because behind the headlines lie thousands of good people working their socks off for their clients, trying to enjoy being in our business.

I cant extrapolate this one night to cover everything in our business but what I can say is that the headline writers, the intermediaries that deliver blows to media with glee, the consultants that pile on as they see an opportunity to make money for their short lived businesses need to stop and think about the good of the industry and all the great, passionate, caring, hard working people that populate it and not just a handful of seniors that really the headlines are about.

AdLondonCalling was a night to celebrate, to remember and we should use it as a reason to revel in a great industry and ask those out to tear it apart to think every once in a while about whether they are being too broad in their attacks. I love this business, I have loved agency side and now publisher side, we have a lot to be proud of, thanks Dave for getting this going, lets see how many other positives we can write about..