UK takes battle to France with ‘audacious’ Paris tech ad campaign
The UK has launched an audacious campaign to attract French tech entrepreneurs to the capital – the latest blow to the Gallic Kingdom’s honour just weeks after Joaquin Phoenix and Oliver Stone gave Napoleon an American accent.
The campaign – ‘Welcome to the Audacious Kingdom’ – hopes to see French entrepreneurs tempted across the channel by the “language, legal system, financial environment, time zone and lack of red tape.”
It marks the latest battle between the French and British governments to attract each other’s talent, which has ramped up since the UK’s departure from the European Union.
Emmanuel Macron has made little secret of his desire to attract both UK businesses and global firms who may be deciding between Paris and London.
His annual Versailles summit has become a fixture in the calendar of global corporates, with Rishi Sunak et al fighting back last month with the UK’s own Global Investment Summit at Hampton Court.
The campaign talks up the UK’s tech ecosystem and posits the UK as a “strategic market in a post-Brexit era.”
The campaign, which is being run by the British Embassy in France and Paris-HQed startup news outfit Maddyness and is integrated into the wider Britain is GREAT push, rolled out this week.
“In addition to the strong community of around 300,000 French nationals, the country has a huge pool of talent from around the world attracted by its dynamism, particularly in tech,” the campaign blurb reads.
“In London of course, but we should not summarize economic dynamism in this city alone, because the rest of the United Kingdom also has many assets, such as aeronautics in Wales or the north of England. which is recognized as an international center of creativity and design and attracts investment from around the world” it continues.
The first phase of the ‘Audacious Kingdom’ campaign ran during the Rugby World Cup, with visuals created by creative agencies Untitled and Pablo.
That campaign focussed on England’s invention of the game of rugby.