Rob has an excellent track record of getting liberal issues into the media.

From his successful Mayoral campaign to his digital campaign to beat Putin’s censorship on Ukraine, Rob combines his traditional media and social media expertise to get heard.

As featured in …

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You’re more likely to win a lottery prize than catch a London bike thief

Rob at the Tour Du Danger - a bicycle ride around dangerous London junctions

Rob’s research on bike thefts was published in LondonCentric, with further analysis published on Rob’s blog.

Rob’s research on sexual offences, and what we can do to cut these terrible crimes was published in Comment is Freed.


Rob Blackie’s research reveals it could take nearly fifty years for the Metropolitan Police to reflect London’s ethnic diversity at the current pace of progress.


Rob Blackie wants to see police focus on investigating sexual assaults rather than crack down on laughing gas.


Rob Blackie is described as “an anti-Brexit campaigner and adviser to startup technology companies” in the Evening Standard.


Rob Blackie and Thomas Crampton team up in an article explaining how the science of communication can significantly increase support for new technologies.


Rob Blackie writes an opinion piece on the ineffectiveness of stop and search in preventing serious and violent crimes in London.


Rob Blackie joins Saul and Patrick to discuss his work on disinformation campaigns by Russian on Ukraine.


Rob Blackie speaks with BBC World Service’s TechTent on his campaign to beat Putin’s censorship.


The boring journey of Matt Yglesias

Digital strategist Rob Blackie’s research reveals Yglesias’ Substack was tied for most-followed newsletter by members of the Biden transition team.


Digital strategist Rob Blackie explains how his campaign ‘Free Russia’ is able to bypass Russia’s press oppression. You can listen to the whole show back here or watch shorter video clips here and here.


We won “Best Digital Campaign” at The Drum Awards for Social Purpose, the industry’s leading awards for socially responsible marketing. Thanks very much to all the volunteers who have made this campaign work.


A group of Lambeth residents have been involved in an advertising campaign that aims to end Russian president Vladimir Putin’s reign over Ukraine.


Little moderation, huge audiences and biddable owners make porn and gambling sites a safe haven from censors.


Russia recently introduced federal laws prohibiting the dissemination of information considered “unreliable” by authorities, which are used to control the Ukraine war narrative


Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the ad tech industry took steps to freeze Russian-owned media companies out of the advertising ecosystem.


Robert Blackie, a digital strategist and former adviser to the late former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy, said Lynch by contrast was good at saying “things that translate well to a social media clip”.


Russia has been churning out disinformation and propaganda related to its war in Ukraine since before the invasion began. And while much of those efforts have been thwarted outside Russia, inside the country is a different story.


Rob Blackie, former Liberal Democrat candidate for the London mayoralty and digital consultant, takes us through his crowdfunded campaign to use those complex adtech channels to disseminate legitimate information.


A group of marketers is using ad tech’s biggest weaknesses—imprecision and unpredictability—as a strategic strength to get factual war news to Russians.


Criticism of Russia has become a common feature of advertisements and the marketing industry.


From pop-up notifications to Facebook ads, campaigners in Ukraine and beyond are using any means necessary to beat Russia’s information firewall.


Thanks to the many layers of obfuscation and complexity that can sit between an advertiser and the website their ad eventually appears on, an anonymous group of volunteers—led by industry veteran Rob Blackie—is using programmatic ad buying to bypass Russian and Belarusian censorship protocols.


Ukrainian ad experts have formed a volunteer group targeting ads to Russia and Belarus, their aim is to counter misinformation about Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Participating businesses have donated over $300,000 to one of the efforts, according to IAB Ukraine


Some Western businesses are providing tech, internet and housing support during Russia’s assault.


If fake news helped erode western democracy, could factual, independent journalism be the final nail in the coffin of the Vladimir Putin regime? It’s a theory being tested by digital advertising expert Rob Blackie, who is raising the funds to inform Russians of the horrors in Ukraine and the budding protests at home.


A team of more than 20 digital marketing experts have created the ads, which lead locals to responsible news outlets.


Publicis Groupe has pledged a guaranteed salary for the rest of 2022.


The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been “overwhelmed” by offers of communications support to combat Russian misinformation.



This Technology Quarterly was written by Geoffrey Carr, Slavea Chankova, Hal Hodson, Alok Jha and Oliver Morton. In addition to the people mentioned in the text, the authors would like to thank the following people: John Bamforth, Cheryl Bennet, Rob Blackie, James Bradner, Rob Carlson


Biden ‘is planning to run again’ in 2024

TOP BIDEN TWITTER INFLUENCERS — Biden transition officials heading into the administration today are fans of NATE SILVER, EZRA KLEIN, The New York Times, Vox and Pod Save America. That’s according to a new analysis of 150 public facing Twitter accounts of Biden transition officials by U.K.-based digital strategist ROB BLACKIE.


When will the whole UK be vaccinated? My projections featured on Peston’s Geek of the Week feature, including commentary from Anushka Asthana and Paul Brand


The way to get people to heed warnings is to inoculate them with good ideas, an expert on behaviour change says.


The results were obtained by Freedom of Information requests submitted by the London Liberal Democrats and seen by Sky News.


US political media expert Travis Ridout assesses efforts to influence UK voters.


Hundreds of subtly different adverts featuring Boris Johnson have been run on Facebook since he became the UK’s new prime minister.

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