Hitting a half-century: The Arrows at fifty

A week is a long time in politics, but 50 years is several lifetimes wrapped up in to one bundle when it comes to the ever-changing vistas of advertising and the creative industries. 

For the British Arrows, celebrating 50 years of promoting, supporting and rewarding British creativity and craft next year, it’s a suitable stopping place to look back, peer ahead and test the ground beneath for telltale tremors of change.

“There was no fast-forward button, and recording from TV wasn’t popular until the 1980s, so adverts were very much seen and very much part of British culture.”

“They were set up in 1976 by Peter Levelle and called the London Television Advertising Awards,” says the recently announced chair for the Craft Arrows, Lizie Gower, who founded Academy Films in 1985 and who has seen plenty of trends and innovations come and go. “I was asked to join the Arrows board in 2006,” she adds. Three years later she was voted in as Chairperson, and one of her first changes was to rebrand it as the British Television Advertising Awards, then the British Arrows.

Above: Ben Priest and Lizie Gower, advertising luminaries who will be the jury presidents of the Craft and Arrows juries respectively. 

“In 1976 there were only three television channels and only one of those, ITV, carried advertisements,” Gower adds. The televisual terrain the first Arrows landed upon was a world where viewing figures for a show like Coronation Street could reach 15 to 20 million. “That meant almost half the UK population would all see the same commercial on one night,” says Gower. “There was no fast-forward button, and recording from TV wasn’t popular until the 1980s, so adverts were very much seen and very much part of British culture.”

“You only have to visit Academy’s boardroom to see how important the Arrows have been through our 40-year history.”

And the British Arrows were soon very much part of British advertising culture. “They have been a constant presence in my production life since I started at Academy, 38 years ago,” says Simon Cooper, who became Managing Partner of Academy when Gower retired from the day-to-day running of the company in 2018, and who is also the current Chair of the Arrows Board. “You only have to visit Academy’s boardroom to see how important the Arrows have been through our 40-year history.”

Cooper sees them as powerfully UK-centric, craft-focused and inclusive of almost all disciplines of the industry. “We coveted Arrows more than [Creative] Circles and [Kinsale] Sharks and weird Ciclopes, and even [D&AD] Pencils and [Cannes] Lions, because they truly represented recognition by our peers, our competitors and friends. And the event was and still is the most fun awards evening.” 

“The Arrows are the only awards that purely celebrate work from the United Kingdom,” agrees Gower “And with its glamorous awards night at the Grosvenor, it’s seen as the British Oscars of the advertising industry.”

Above: Simon Cooper, Managing Parter at Academy Films and the current chair of the Arrows Board of Directors. 

Cooper also points to the importance of the Young Arrows, introduced in 2022. “They are vital in providing a platform for young and emerging talent to get the recognition and exposure they badly need,” he says. “They stand out as the most important legacy of the Arrows in recent memory. They provide recognition, validation and encouragement to a generation of talents for whom it is harder than ever before to get a foothold in the industry, and to be seen and appreciated once there. Which is why they are free to enter, to try to eliminate any financial barriers and provide equal opportunity to entry.” 

“[The Young Arrows] are vital in providing a platform for young and emerging talent to get the recognition and exposure they badly need.” 

Gower agrees. “The Young Arrows gives a much-needed platform for emerging talent to get their work seen,” she says. “It’s critical for the health of the industry to clear the paths for new voices.” As well as the YAs, other changes made since the noughties include the Arrows’ international relationships with the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and Moma in New York, and the introduction of craft categories in 2017.

Since the first Arrows landed, a great deal has changed. “In 1976 the advertising agencies and production companies were predominately male, white, middle class and the work reflected this, with the dominant male breadwinner and the female subservient housewife,” says Gower. “Fifty years ago the awarded commercials were 30-second ads. We now have a much broader range of voices to reflect today’s society, and there are multiple opportunities to view the work, from mobiles to social media, as well as streaming, interactive and experiential platforms.” 

Above: The very first winner from the Arrows' 1976 award, Parker Pens' Finishing School.

Ben Priest, founder and former CCO at adam&eveDDB, was head of the Arrows jury back in 2013, and is set to take up that sash again for 2026. “They were always unique,” he says of the awards. “And because it was film, it was big. In the old days if you wanted to enter, it had to have been on telly. Millions of people had to have seen it. And they had agencies and production companies spending time together. Those two worlds can feel quite separate. And now they have craft in as well, so it encompasses the whole ecosystem.”

"Everyone suddenly went, ‘Oh we need to show we are a brand of principles, vision and a modern brand with a value system’.”

Not long ago, Priest says, he watched the very first winner from 1976. "Parker Pens' finishing school with Penelope Keith, and she’s teaching them to write cheques. ‘How do you spell pence miss?’. ‘I don’t think you’ll need to worry about that'. It’s just fabulous. I’ve watched it a hundred times and it still makes me laugh. And you look at that and think, it would be lovely to see some funny 30-second ads again. Humour suddenly became a dirty word.”

That may partly be down to him, he adds. adam&eveDDB's 2011 John Lewis Christmas spot The Long Wait, was a big winner at the Arrows in its day, and cast a long shadow. “People started to make work that was more serious, more emotional, and with longer time lengths, and then everyone suddenly went, ‘Oh we need to show we are a brand of principles, vision and a modern brand with a value system’.”

Above: Getting Dressed, one of Lynx's spots, through BBH London, from the early noughties. 

While serious may have superseded funny as the dominant tone of voice in these seriously unfunny times, when asked to pick their favourite Arrows winners from over the years, both Cooper and Gower highlight the humorous. “The brilliant Axe ads from BBH, or the Maureen Lipman ads for BT, It’s Good to Talk,” says Gower. “I’ve always enjoyed that use of humour to humanise their brands.”

For Cooper, it’s the funny-surreal 1990s campaigns for Stella, but for Gower, Cooper and Priest, the top spot is Guinness Surfer [directed by Academy's Jonathan Glazer]. Priest sets the scene: “It was one of those ads that, if you were in a pub watching football and that came on, everyone would stop talking and they would watch that to the end.”

“When I came to London, you could claim housing benefit, and live on £30 a week, on the dole. You ate baked beans. Now, the economics don’t add up."

While the three of them see a much more diverse culture across the industry, some of the larger-scale issues at play are nothing to laugh about, especially for those trying to enter the industry. Can the Arrows hit some new targets there? For, as Priest says, the Young Arrows are not only a reflector of rising talents, but an instigator for change through recognition.

“They’re a real avenue to allow people to showcase their talents regardless of their experience or background,” he says. But beyond that, the closure of college courses that train people coming into the industry, and the socio-economic barriers to breaking though at all, are inhibiting factors to industry growth. “When I came to London,” says Priest, “you could claim housing benefit, and live on £30 a week, on the dole. You ate baked beans. Now, the economics don’t add up. Even though advertising is so much better than it was in terms of diversity, the macroeconomics of how the country works makes it really tough. An awards festival can support, encourage and showcase young talent and the Arrows does a really good job at that,” he adds, “but an awards festival is not going to solve that.”