Giving a platform to unheard voices
Mark Hadfield, founder of Meet the 85%, delivers Socially Mobile Spring alumni lecture
Mark Hadfield is driven by giving a voice to people that would not ordinarily be heard. He is the founder of Meet the 85%, an ethnographic research and planning business that captures the lives of people via photography, audio and video.
“85% of the UK population live outside London, but with our politics, media, communications and cultural sectors are all centred on London. It gets far more than its share of coverage and conversation,” said Mark.
Organisations, brands and policymakers often overlook ordinary people outside major metropolitan hubs. Mark made a compelling case for listening to diverse audiences. His work is about driving inclusion, fairness, and social equity. Amplifying voices that might otherwise be excluded leads to better decision-making.
“As many people live in rural locations in the UK as in London. Why is their perspective rarely represented as a customer segment in a brand planning exercise? Decision makers often reside in middle or upper-class bubbles detached from many people’s realities,” said Mark.
Mark has returned to his roots in the North East of England after working for international advertising agencies in Asia and seeking to understand the people of countries including Australia, China, Singapore, India and Korea.
He attributed his career working at the highest levels in advertising for agencies, including IRIS and BBDO, and brands, including Guinness, Phillips, and Shell to a combination of luck and privilege.
“Personal progress often depends on being prepared to make bold decisions and walk through doors that appear, but financial constraints are a significant limiting factor for many individuals.”
Mark spoke about the influence of his working class and comprehensive school background and how this grounded his reality but always created tension in his professional life. He was the first person in his family to attend university, where he studied architecture before moving into advertising strategy and planning.
Mark said he’d only recently addressed the tension between personal “working-class mentality” and professional “middle-class situation.”
“If you’re not true to yourself, you’ll never truly succeed because you’ll live a lie. If you’re true to yourself, you’ll always succeed because no one else can succeed at being you,” he said.
