{"id":12240,"date":"2025-04-12T00:31:19","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T00:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/12240\/"},"modified":"2025-04-12T00:31:19","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T00:31:19","slug":"im-from-down-under-i-believe-manchester-can-steal-londons-thunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/12240\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m from down under. I believe Manchester can steal London\u2019s thunder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Active International\u2019s Cameron Swan is an Australian in the UK. He finds the tendency to label everything outside of London as \u2018the regions\u2019 as a self-fulfilling prophecy we need to get over. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Gary Neville and I might have our sporting differences, but there\u2019s something we firmly agree on. Namely, the great potential of the city of Manchester. When he quoted Disraeli on his Instagram last month, I found myself giving the post a like. He was heralding the whopping \u00a32bn investment secured for the development of a new, completely upgraded stadium for United, close to the current Old Trafford site<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Disraeli\u2019s line, \u201cWhat Manchester does today, the world does tomorrow,\u201d might have its origins in a vastly different generation, but it\u2019s having a resurgence 200 years later. Just today there\u2019s another report out from EY showing the Northern city is on course to outpace the UK\u2019s economic growth rate<\/a>. And in no way is it the only one to watch. <\/p>\n

\n Want to go deeper? Ask The Drum<\/p>\n

I may not be a native to this country (coming from sunnier climes, about 9,000 miles south and 11 hours ahead) but rather than holding me back, I think that\u2019s given me an advantage. Particularly in medialand.<\/p>\n

You see, I don\u2019t have the ingrained belief that London is the UK. I don\u2019t feel that the M25 is the invisible force field many still seem to. <\/p>\n

In my homeland of Australia, we have distinct cities with distinct strengths \u2013 and there are a range of them. From the cultural highs of Melbourne to beaches and barefoot Sydney to a tropical buzzy Brisbane. And in fact, none of them can or should be summed up in a line or phrase, which is part of their beauty. There\u2019s no assumption that targeting Aussies means starting and ending in Sydney. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s the lens I try to overlay on the UK.<\/p>\n

But all too often, I\u2019m fighting a losing battle. Yes, London is still a dynamic powerhouse, and we\u2019re in no way tired of the potential of the capital and the opportunity it brings. But it doesn\u2019t mean everything outside it deserves to be lumped together as \u201cthe regions\u201d (a word we\u2019ve actually banned from our vocab when talking geography). It shouldn\u2019t be seen as a homogenous, almost-ran. I\u2019ve always been struck by the distinctness of the local cultures and particularly accents in each area \u2013 when we have minor differences 2,300 miles apart, you have Mancunians, Geordies and Bristolians, just hours away from each other. <\/p>\n

This is a diverse set of cities and towns (and villages) that produces more advertising jobs than the capital, an economy that generates 75% of the country\u2019s GDP and includes a city that\u2019s set to outstrip London on economic output. Disraeli (and Neville\u2019s) Manchester is the largest marketing and advertising economy outside of the capital and then there\u2019s Leeds, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh and many, many more. Over two-thirds of the UK\u2019s independent agencies are now based outside the M25, according to Agency By Agency. <\/p>\n

If you believe what you read, house prices are set to rise highest outside of London<\/a> in 2025, too. The signals are there for all to see. The government\u2019s 2025 announcement of a \u00a367m out of London boost<\/a> is also a welcome step in the right direction (even if they do still use insist on using the \u201cr\u201d word). <\/p>\n

As a media pro, I look to the numbers, and maybe because I\u2019m not home-grown, I see potential, rather than secondary cities. The proof is evident \u2013 we already work with a range of businesses deliberately located and growing outside of the capital. Over the last few years, 40% of our billings have come from work outside of London and the South East, and I know that\u2019s not a ceiling. Particularly as some of the greatest household names \u2013 like Boots, Jaguar Land Rover, Co-op, Dominos and Ikea \u2013 are headquartered outside of London. <\/p>\n

And in a country that\u2019s now more virtually \u201cconnected” than ever, having hired our first director based outside of London, we\u2019re quickly seeing the value in actual, human connections created by having feet on the ground. Being an Aussie, any city you can reach by car in a matter of hours should be considered a close neighbor. And it was really important to me that we work with someone based outside of London who\u2019s grown business and seen the potential of projects outside the capital first-hand. <\/p>\n

Gary Neville may be alluding to the new stadium and 100,000 football fans filling the stands in his post, but I see the potential of these so-called second cities stretching far beyond the next few football seasons. The injection of an additional projected \u00a37.3bn into the national economy annually from this development alone is just the start. Disraeli\u2019s vision is alive and kicking. <\/p>\n

Read more opinion on The Drum.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Active International\u2019s Cameron Swan is an Australian in the UK. He finds the tendency to label everything outside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[8375,748,8374,393,4884,257,2465,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-12240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-agency-performance","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-digital-marketing","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-manchester","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114322177170304274","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}