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LBB editorial contacts

Regular editorial features

Members' interview series

Editorial calendar & seasonal features

THE LBB EDITORIAL TEAM

Laura Swinton (editor in chief, brands & global) laura@lbbonline.com

EMEA

Alex Reeves (Managing editor, EMEA) alex@lbbonline.com

Olivia Atkins (EMEA reporter: MEA & DACH) olivia@lbbonline.com

Zoe Antonov (EMEA reporter: UK, CEE) zoe@lbbonline.com

Zhenya Tsenzharyk - UK editor - zhenya@lbbonline.com

Tará McKerr - EMEA reporter - tara@lbbonline.com

Zara Naseer - EMEA members reporter - zara@lbbonline.com

AMERICAS

Addison Capper (Americas editor) addison@lbbonline.com

Ben Conway (Americas reporter) ben@lbbonline.com

Jordan Won Neufeldt (Canada reporter) jordan@lbbonline.com

Adam Bennett - Strategic Editorial Lead, Americas - adam@lbbonline.com

April Summers - Strategic Writer, Americas - april@lbbonline.com
Lily Paskin - Strategic Writer - lilyp@lbbonline.com

APAC & AUNZ

Brittney Rigby (Managing Editor AUNZ) brittney@lbbonline.com

Casey Martin (APAC/AUNZ reporter) casey@lbbonline.com

Tom Loudon (APAC/AUNZ reporter) toml@lbbonline.com

Sunna Coleman (Asia Reporter) - sunna@lbbonline.com

Please send all press releases to the content team at newsdesk@lbbonline.com and if your company is a member of LBB they will be published. You can find a guide for how to structure and write press releases here. If you don't have the time or resources to write your own articles, speak to our sales team about upgrading to a premium membership.

If you are a managed package member, you can send all work for the archive to the library team at archive@lbbonline.com

These are features that LBB's Editorial Team runs throughout the year. For the most part, there’s no hard and fast calendar, these are features that we run on an ongoing basis and editorially we’ll be trying to balance out international representation and industry sectors and overall diversity. It’s worth mentioning that particularly for features like 5 Minutes and The Directors we are keen to use the platform to showcase female and marginalised talent. We also spontaneously do plenty of off-the-cuff interviews and stories that don’t conform to any formula. Inclusion in these features is not guaranteed. See 'Members Interviews' for series’ with guaranteed coverage.

5 Minutes with... Interviews with the top people in the international advertising, marketing and creative industries

Ad Astra - A rallying call for creativity, Ad Astra features are in-depth profile pieces about the leading lights of global advertising. This feature is currently limited to global chief creative officers and must be pitched to laura@lbbonline.com.

Behind the Work - Behind the scenes on some of the most exciting creative campaigns. These can be traditional film campaigns but also digital projects, experiences, and category-defying activations too. What we care about is the insight, creative and production stories.

Brand Insight - Stories and interviews with marketers about their brand’s recent direction and future plans. This tends to be broader than just one campaign. We are open to stories where we speak to both the marketer and agency about work they’ve done together but the marketer/client must be involved in the interview.

Dream Teams - Trust and teamwork are at the heart of creativity and the industry is bursting with incredible partnerships. We want to profile and showcase the tightest twosomes in the business – how you met, why you work together so well, and what you’ve learned from each other – and advice for people navigating their own working relationships. This can be art director/copywriter pairs, directors and editors; MDs and ECDs; experience designers and creatives; character designers and animators…ultimately, it’s all about those enduring professional collaborations and friendships.

Film Club - Production companies do more than just commercials and often their really creative short film projects get overlooked, so Film Club is a place to talk about new shorts.

Firebrands - Brilliant work just isn’t possible without brilliant marketers - but so often they’re left out of the creative conversation. We’ll be meeting leading marketers to find out about the journey they’ve been on with their brand, how they work with their partners, and their views and visions around the topics and trends bubbling up ahead of them.

High Five - A fun listicle series where creatives, strategists, directors and producers share their top five campaigns from a particular market or segment. It could be ‘5 Funniest Ads from Thailand’ or 5 Best Music Videos from March’ - it’s a great way to help educate the rest of the industry about what’s happening creatively. Be warned though, you’re only allowed to pick one of your own projects! You can download the layout guide with prompts for your answers here.

Into the Library - ‘Into the Library with…’ is a trip down memory lane with the most exciting directors working in commercial production and music video, and leading adland creative directors. We’re looking for these top creative talents to share 7-10 jobs that have meant the most to them in their career, from early experiments to bombastic blockbusters and everything in between. If possible, it would be great to get a mix of old and new, and one or two wildcards mixed in with the more famous pieces. One of our journalists will interview the director, talking about each piece in chronological order to find out what it is that makes them so memorable. This interview can be done as a call or via email, with the director choosing their favourite pieces and writing up their reasons for choosing them - please pitch to the editorial team if you’d like to put someone forward.

Making Music - Making music is a series where we talk to the composers, producers and supervisors of some of the best new and classic commercial soundtracks.

Trends & Insight - Stories with a bit more depth that don’t conform to any template.

Uprising - Spotlights on the up-and-coming junior and mid-level industry talent making amazing work and shaking up the future. One of the most popular features on the site when it comes to traffic!

The Vanguard - This is a new series where we sit down with the CEOs leading the world’s biggest agency networks and holding companies to find out about how they became the leaders they are, what it means to rally thousands through a fast-changing industry, what clients need and where they see the industry going.

These features are designed to put the power in your hands. You can platform your talent and work whenever you like. And the great news is, we've devised the concept and format for these feature interviews already, so all you need to do is pick your talent, choose a relevant feature for their job role and get them to fill in their answers.

To take part, simply download the brief and questions by clicking on the titles below in bold. When you or your talent have answered, email the document and any images or videos you'd like included in the article to newsdesk@lbbonline.com for publishing.

There's no strict guidelines on schedule. We leave that down to you - but one hot tip to get more views and clicks is to spread the publishing out over regular intervals.

ALL DISCIPLINES AND COMPANY TYPES

Essential List - A fun listicle piece about the kit, culture and cuisine that keeps the industry’s creative folk going!

My Biggest Lesson - This is where experienced ad folk and production people can share the pearls of wisdom that have shaped their career and can help those making their way to avoid the same pitfalls.

My Creative Hero - This piece explores the creative inspirations behind the industry’s talent. This usually means non-advertising creative heroes, allowing participants to explore their broader influences.

The Work That Made Me - The best way to understand a person’s career is to look at the work that made them. Their first campaign. The campaign that someone else did that made them jealous. The campaign that taught them some painful but useful lessons. The work that they’re proudest of. This is also a great feature as it’s a chance to share older work and work from different markets that readers around the world may not have seen before.

Thought Leaders - This is our channel for opinion pieces. We find that pieces that are closely aligned with newsy or timely topics perform particularly well, whether it’s a big sporting event or a hit new Netflix show that everyone is talking about. We’ve mapped out a few events that we think will prove to be talking points to get you started.

BUSINESS & LEADERSHIP

Bossing It - Leadership doesn’t come easy and everyone has their own views about what makes an effective leader. In this series of regular features we interview leaders, founders and entrepreneurs and creative management about their journey towards leadership and their own lessons and insights. Specifically for CEOs, COOs, MDs, Founders, EPs.

The New New Business - The creative industry wouldn’t be able to create without the people bringing in business and closing sales. As the industry evolves, so too is new business and sales. We want to speak to the people making the gears of the industry turn, whether they’re at agency, production, post, tech or media platform, to share their insights with those struggling to close the deal.

DE&I: Accelerating Change - We want to interview the industry’s DE&I leads to find out about their perspective and how the wider industry can take responsibility for transforming the industry for the better.

AGENCIES

Are You Experienced? - Experiential advertising is one of the hardest to write about - after all, you had to be there, right? One of the most intimate, engaging and visceral forms of marketing rarely gets its chance to shine. That’s why we want to give creatives, strategists and producers working in the experiential space the chance to really dig into the magic that they weave. This member interview series is all about giving you the space to talk about an experience you helped to create, to discuss the challenges involved and make it feel more real for readers who didn’t manage to get hands on with it.

Creativity Squared - A creative profile with a difference – psychologists have distilled creativity down to four factors, and we’ll be exploring those with copywriters, art directors and creative directors to get a 360° view of who they are and how they work.

Magic Numbers - Data-driven creativity is something that brands and agencies all over the world are investing in and banking on - but what does that really mean, what are the best practices and potential blindspots? This feature is for brand and agency data experts.

Problem Solved - This is a new feature about agency projects that go beyond campaign work and use creativity to solve business problems. These can include digital transformation project, product development, employee engagement initiatives, ecommerce platforms and behaviour change initiatives.

Planning for the Best - The intellectuals of the industry, planners arm their creative colleagues with the human insights and hard data to make sure their ideas are founded in truth. We want to celebrate the planners and strategists and pick into their processes and thoughts about the evolving discipline.

The Art of Account Management - A piece for account managers/execs to discuss the subtle art of bringing clients, creatives and everything else together.

Creative Marketing - We’re looking to talk to innovative and creative marketers who are the drivers behind brilliant work, to find out how they think about and enable great creativity.

What the Flack - A series profiling the communications industries’ communicators, the PR and comms leads and agency Chief Marketing officers.

MEDIA

Social Butterflies - There are few areas of the advertising and marketing industry more fast-paced than social media. Between the big personalities at the helm of the platforms to the rapid adoption of new tech and formats to the always-on barrage of hot takes and spicy discourse. This new series is for the social media creatives, strategists and producers - as well as those working at the social platforms themselves - to share their insights from the freshest frontier of tech and creativity.

Media Matters - Without media, an idea is just an abstract thing with no audience. It’s the engine of the industry - and one that is changing rapidly. We want to catch up with leading media planners to find out a bit about how the field has changed and their take on some of the current hot-button topics.

FILM & CONTENT PRODUCTION

Camera Obscura: Production Obsessions - This is a piece for anyone involved in craft and production, from directors to animators, compositors to composers, cinematographers to sound designers. We want you to nerd out about an element of your craft that you are absolutely obsessed with. It could be a particular kind of camera lens or shooting format. It could be aspect ratios. It could be a particular tool that feels like it’s become your right hand. It could be a part of the process that you just always find incredibly fun.

The Directors - This feature allows directors to go beyond their reel to talk about their thoughts about the business of directing and how they like to work, giving potential clients and collaborators a clearer idea about their problem solving and working styles.

Meet Your Makers - Interviews with producers specifically aimed at production, post and service companies all about the business of content and commercial production, insights into an evolving industry and some career advice for those making their way.

Production & Technology - This is an interview series for producers with a passion for technology and innovation. Here we’re diving into the technological innovations that are changing production, or at least broadening the demands on and possibilities for production.

Producing Tomorrow’s Producers - This feature is for producers, particularly those in leadership roles (EPs, senior producers, heads of production) who are keen to develop the next generation of producers, make sure that skills and expertise are passed on, while also learning from the up-and-comers of the creator economy.

Production Line - Interviews with agency and brand in-house producers talking about the challenges making work that works while navigating and integrating new channels and technologies and helping brands to solve their problems.

Sustainable Production - This is an interview series for producers with a passion for sustainability and who have been working to reduce the carbon footprint and environmental impact of their productions. It is intended to highlight best practice, share helpful pointers and also discuss some of the challenges moving forward. It’s a feature that’s appropriate for producers working in agency, production, production service, or even in-house at brand.

PHOTOGRAPHY, ANIMATION & DESIGN

Animate! - Animators are the magicians of filmmaking - to animate means, quite literally, to bring to life after all. So we want to celebrate the animators who fill our eyeballs with pure wizardry with this series of interviews.

Picture This - In which we ask a photographer to break down one of their favourite commercial photographs, revealing the story behind it. It doesn't have to be a recent project, in fact, famous/iconic advertising image would be most welcomed here!

Style Guide - This piece is for any sort of image-making artist working commercially. It could be illustrators, photographers, graphic designers or animators. It best suits those with a really distinctive flavour and style...

By Design - We want to talk to a range of the industry’s design experts about their careers and views on what ‘good’ design looks like. This series is open to everyone from UX designers, CX designers to product designers and graphic designers.

PRODUCTION SERVICE

Location Spotlight - Interviews and guides with production service specialists from around the world about inspirational locations and practical production issues.

EDITING & VFX

Finely Sliced - We speak to editors about the art of the cut and explore the knife edge between good editing… and great editing.

Making the Grade - The grade is one of the most fascinating parts of the post process so we want to talk to talented colour graders about how they practice their craft.

The VFX Factor - This feature is a place for the visual virtuosos of advertising, the VFX artists, to discuss the trends in their role: the technological advancements revolutionising the way they work, the beauty of ‘invisible’ post, and trends in craft.

MUSIC & SOUND

Sonic Boom - Sonic Boom is a series on creative and technological innovations in sound design.

Thinking in Sound - We want to delve into the minds of the industry’s fantastic music and sound specialists to show just how creative this part of the industry is. We want to really dig into what inspires you and how you approach your work, while also getting a taste of how the music and sound part of the industry is changing.

After hearing from more and more individuals who want to promote themselves, we have launched a selection of interviews that Pro Users can get involved in, showcasing their best work and getting featured on the front page of LBB, as well as populating their profile at the same time.

To take part, simply download the brief and questions by clicking on the titles below in bold. When you have answered, email the document and any images or videos you'd like included in the article to hannahb@lbbonline.com to schedule its publishing.

Pro Hello - Put your best foot forward and say hello! In this feature, we want to give our Pro Users the chance to introduce themselves to the rest of the LBB community.

My Creative Obsession - This piece is all about allowing you to showcase your creative passion, and what really makes you unique and special as a creative collaborator.

Expert Eye - You can share your skills and expertise with this feature, also giving you a chance to advise and inspire people with less experience looking for a way into the field

Live Free - With an open layout, this insight-based op-ed has a different twist to the rest. It’s about creating a space for freelance talent to discuss the unique challenges and opportunities that come with being a creative, strategist or production expert who is taking control of their destiny. Balancing business and creative isn’t always easy!

Please check out the topics we’re planning to write features about in the coming year. These are outside of our regular features (please see above), which we write all year round. Moreover we do endeavour to respond to news developments in the industry and more broadly in our features. As the year progresses, this document will be updated and expanded throughout the year. As we assign writers and develop briefs we will contact LBB members.

NOVEMBER

Key Dates

- Diwali - November 1st

- US Election - November 2th

Features

Creative: Breaking Through Creative Blocks

Ever get those moments when your brain just refuses to create and you find yourself flat out of ideas? We want to talk to creatives who’ve been right up against that brick wall of un-inspiration and figured out how to climb over it or flat out demolish it. Top creatives share their tips for dealing with creative blocks - whether it’s meditation, exercise, having a chat at the bus stop or even heading to the amusement arcade, or something completely different.

Writer: tara@lbbonline.com Submission Deadline: November 15

Leadership: Showcase of Up-and-Coming Industry Leaders Making their Mark

We’re looking to showcase the industry’s visionaries who are new to senior leadership but who are shaking things up. This could be someone who’s just been promoted to MD or c-suite level within the past year - we’re looking for people who have hit the ground running, full of fire and principle.

Writer: adam@lbbonline.com Submission Deadline: November 16

Production: Directors Behind Festive Ads on How to Shoot a Very Merry Christmas

Christmas advertising has become part of the emotional scene-setting for the festive season, and in recent years audiences have been looking to ads to get them in the spirit. That’s a lot of pressure on the directors who are tasked with bringing those holiday commercials to life, so we want to speak to directors behind this and last year's clutch of ads to find out about the magic touches, from music and wardrobe to nostalgia, that tug on our heartstrings and get us in the mood.

Writer: casey@lbbonline.com Submission Deadline: November 21

Editing: The Secrets of the Snip

Editing can make or break a piece of commercial filmmaking. Whether its long form or a short social media snippet, a great edit can create connection, emotion and capture our attention. But if you’re not an editing expert, it can be hard to pinpoint just how something is working (or isn’t!). We want to speak to the industry’s editing experts to get their advice for agency and brand clients as to what they should look out for and how to tell a great edit from a good edit.

Writer: ben@lbbonline.com Submission Deadline: November 17

Music: Jingles All the Way - Music and Christmas Advertising

Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring tingle tingling too… however much you may spend November trying to avoid hearing ‘Last Christmas’, there’s no denying music is one of the key ingredients of the festive season, and that counts doubly when it comes to commercials. We’re looking to speak to the industry’s music supervisors and composers to find out what makes the perfect festive ad music, the distinction between familiarity and cliche and why marketers need to take music seriously in the holidays.

Writer: zhenya@lbbonline.com Submission Deadline: November 18

Commerce: Dopamine Drops - Commerce Experiences That are Sheer Joy

The holiday season sees us all shopping till we drop and that rush to find the perfect present for our nearest and dearest can soon become a chore. We want to speak to the industry’s commerce and retail experts about how to sprinkle a little joy and delight into commerce experiences, with examples if possible!

Writer: sunna@lbbonline.com Submission Deadline: November 12

DECEMBER

Key Dates

- World Disability Day - December 3rd

- Christmas - December 25th

Features

Christmas: How to Win the Festive Food Fight

Christmas is a cavalcade of eating, drinking and being merry. In advertising terms it’s a full-on food fight - and don’t we just love it? We want to speak to agencies and brands behind the food, beverage and grocery campaigns this holiday season to find out about how they approached standing out from the scrum and winning over hearts, minds and bellies with their festive advertising.

Writer: tara@lbbonline.com Submission Deadline: December 6

Was 2024 a Vintage Year for Creativity?

There was certainly a lot going on in 2024, politically, technologically, economically - but what about creatively? We want to find out which campaigns and projects were your favourites and why, and, taken in the round, how you think creativity in 2024 fared. Was it a vintage year and what do you want to see more of in 2025?

Writer: zoe@lbbonline.com Submission Deadline: December 6

Strategy: What We Learned from the Mega Election Year

Politics in 2024… you couldn’t escape it. From India to the UK, France to the USA, elections were all the rage. Literally. We want to hear from the industry’s insight gurus about what they learned watching this bumper election year roll out and how it impacted brands and communities.

Writer: adam@lbbonline.com Submission Deadline: December 9

Accessibility: Are We Nearly There Yet?

Accessible design was back in the spotlight this year with the Paralympics hitting Paris, and it was a hot topic at Cannes with Circus Grey Lima’s Sightwalks taking the Design Grand Prix. With World Disability Day on December 3, we want to take the opportunity to talk to the industry’s experts about accessibility, whether they think brands and businesses are catching on, where they have perceived progress, where we’re lacking and what we’d like to see in 2025.

Writer: ben@lbbonline.com Submission Deadline: November 25

Did AI Really Transform 2024?

After 2023’s year of quaintly wonky experimentation, 2024 was to be the year that AI grew up. And the year certainly saw holding companies make eye-watering investments in the technology. But caution persists among a sizeable chunk of clients, so what meaningful progress did the industry make on AI, and what further change are we likely to see in 2025?

Writer: addison@lbbonline.com Submission Deadline: December 10

Tourism and Travel in 2025

2024 is dead, long live 2025 - and 2025 vacations! Yes, it’s that time of year when one’s mind turns to holidays, especially if you’re stuck in the dark and cold of the Northern Hemisphere. Now that the travel sector has truly bounced back from the pandemic lockdowns, some new challenges have emerged, from trusted carriers letting the side down on experience to growing visitor frustrations with the likes of Airbnb. Meanwhile, hotel groups are looking to diversify their portfolios to capture new kinds of travellers. Experience, it seems, is king, especially when it comes to travel. We want to speak to the industry’s travel experts (both agencies and brands) to find out about the challenges and opportunities facing the sector.

Writer: sunna@lbbonline.com Submission Deadline: December 12

Very Mindful: Cultural moments that mattered in 2024

2024 was a funny old year - Deadpool, Beetlejuice and Charlie XCX ran riot with corporate-sanctioned chaos, Shogun proved audiences had finally overcome their fear of subtitles (and younger audiences revealed themselves to be addicted to them), and everyone from Oasis to Mrs Doubtfire cashed in our craving for nostalgia. We want to speak to the industry’s cultural mavens to find out about the cultural moments and trends that stuck out for them in 2024, whether in the realm of film, gaming, literature, music, social media, sport or wider meta-trends.

Writer: zhenya@lbbonline.com Submission Deadline: December 13

Baby, It’s Warm Outside

Advertising has always been a fickle and flighty industry as it hops from trend to trend..even when it comes to important causes. The climate crisis hasn't gone anywhere, with 2024 seeing record breaking temperatures, more extremes of weather and carbon sinks have continued to be destroyed. Back in 2020, there was a great push in the advertising industry to both tackle its own carbon-guzzling profligacy and to use its skills to reframe sustainability and pro-environmentalism... but four year's on, is there the same sense of urgency, particularly as adland attention is consumed by the stress of budgetary pressures and the AI arms race? What progress, if any, did we make in 2024 and what do we, as an industry, need to do in 2025?

Writer: TBC Submission Deadline: December 12

I Wish I'd Made That - Producers and Directors on the 2024 Ads That Make Them Envious

The festive season is a time for togetherness and generosity and so we want to celebrate the community of the commercial production industry by inviting producers and directors to champion the work that made them really jealous this year. If you'd like to get involved, pick an ad that you loved this year but that you and your production company didn't make and give us 150-200 words about why you think it's so brilliantly crafted. This piece is open to producers and directors based in any market!

Writer: toml@lbbonline.com Submission Deadline: November 29

What the Christmas Ad Trends Can Tell Us About the World Right Now

As one of the few remaining mass market advertising moments, Christmas commercials can tell us a remarkable amount about the state of society, or, at least, what the ad industry thinks about the state of society. We want to talk to creatives and strategists about what trends they've spotted in this year's clutch of holiday ads and what insights they've gleaned about society and the industry's assumptions about it as we head into 2025.

Writer: april@lbbonline.om Submission Deadline: December 9