Simon Broadbent has been called 'one of the few figures who have significantly influenced advertising thinking over the past three decades.'
He was a Staff Captain in the Royal Engineers then read mathematics at Oxford and got a PhD at London. After ten years in industry, he joined Leo Burnett to run first the media and then the research department. He was assigned to Chicago as Director of Brand Economics and returned to London in 1989, where he helped found The Brand Consultancy.
His books include Spending Advertising Money and The Advertising Budget. He helped start the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising's Advertising Effectiveness Awards and edited the first two volumes of Advertising Works. He also wrote for the IPA the Best Practice Guide to Campaign Evaluation. He chairs the Economics Committee of the Advertising Association.