Creative Circle

The Creative Circle (also known as The Advertising Creative Circle and The Advertising Creative Circle of Great Britain) is an educational awards body dedicated to creativity in British advertising, and the oldest advertising and marketing awards body in Europe. Their mission is to help promote creative excellence in advertising, while sharing knowledge and experience through educational programs and supporting young creative people. The annual Creative Circle awards are highly regarded, and judged by the British advertising creative community themselves. Their main offices are in Covent Garden, London.

After many months of preliminary discussions, the Advertising Creative Circle of Great Britain was founded on 8 October 1945, at a luncheon at The Trocadero Hotel, London. The concept can be traced back to two forward-thinking ad men, H.F. Crowther (Director of Advertising Agency Rumble, Crowther & Nicholas) and G.R. Pope (Advertising Manager of The Times).

At the time, Crowther and Pope felt there was no other advertising organisation concerned exclusively with the craft of visualising, writing and designing advertising, and so decided to create an Advertising Creative Circle that could "not only provide a forum for such creative men, but [also] contribute to raising the status of advertising as a profession".

This first council was responsible for determining subscriptions, membership control, copy vigilance, press relations and a programme of art exhibitions, publications and functions. In addition, they were tasked with selecting 10 more honorary members and a further 50 ordinary members, to be made up of noteworthy people wholly engaged in creative work - copywriters, copy chiefs, artists, art directors, layout men, visualisers and more.

Within its press relations functions, the Creative Circle hoped not only to keep the press informed about advertising matters generally, but also "take up the cudgels" whenever it was publicly attacked.

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