Jake Dubbins is Co-chair of The Conscious Advertising Network (CAN) and MD of Media Bounty. CAN is a cross industry group dedicated to ethics in advertising. Its goal is for all brands to include the CAN manifestos in all agency briefs and RFPs.
Who is your digital hero?
Nandini Jammi co-founder of Sleeping Giants. I just love her fearlessness.
What has she done to win hero status in your eyes?
Taking on injustice by shining a light on the hypocrisy and downright harmful practices in digital advertising and beyond.
It is really fucking awesome that a woman of colour is leading the charge on this in a world dominated by people who look like me. She is an inspiration.
How has her heroism helped drive digital?
Her work with Sleeping Giants has shown the hypocrisy of brands talking about their caring values and their purpose, all the while funding hate speech, white supremacy, misinformation and fraud.
She is also using her platform to call out other businesses outside of advertising. Publicly taking on the big consultancy firms who are involved with ICE and the detention of migrant children in the US is both brave and right.
What the biggest challenges in digital we need another hero to solve?
The mental health crisis our addiction to our devices is causing.
In this time of Covid-19 there can be time for some to reflect. Reconnecting with nature and our communities has been one of the upsides. How do we maintain a healthier connection between our digital and real worlds?
Obviously the other one is climate. We are in the middle of a pandemic emergency. Governments, businesses and citizens have reacted accordingly.
All of us need to step up to the plate for the other defining emergency of our age – climate change.
Some of the work that we are doing at the Conscious Advertising Network is mapping the misinformation patterns emerging from this crisis so we can better inform the industry and society to confront the science denial that the climate emergency faces.
What is your most heroic personal achievement so far in digital?
Speaking at a General Assembly meeting at the United Nations on behalf of CAN in December 2018.
Not much can top being introduced by a panel that included the Secretary General, Antonio Guterres and then sharing a stage with Louise Arbour, who prosecuted Slobodan Milosevic in the Hague, Ex Ireland President, Mary Robinson and current High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet!
