Global Scan: The Globalization of Advertising Agencies, Concepts, and Campaigns

TLDR

Advertising agencies have become transnational, concentrating control in a few large American, Japanese, and British firms and increasingly centralizing services in New York City while shrinking regional offices. This paper examines how advertising agencies mediate geographic economic and cultural change by realigning operations for a global approach and promoting images of globalism. The agencies accelerate standardization, global research, media buying, and international accounts, thereby mediating the globalization of clients and consumptive markets.

Abstract

AbstractThis paper explores the role of the advertising industry in mediating geographic aspects of economic and cultural change. A transnationalization of advertising agencies through both foreign direct investment and acquisition has concentrated control and extended the spatial reach of a few large American, Japanese, and British advertising agencies and holding companies in the 1980s and 1990s. In the case of U.S. agencies, internal reorganization signals a greater geographic concentration of advertising services in New York City and cutbacks at regional offices. I argue that “global agencies” have realigned their internal operations to facilitate a global advertising approach and have promoted images of “globalism” congruent with their transnational expansion. Agencies have accelerated the push toward standardized campaigns, global research studies, global media buying, and international accounts. In this way, agencies mediate the globalization of both clients and consumptive markets.