Participation By U.S. Agencies in International Brand Advertising: An Empirical Study.

Many ad agency executives have proclaimed the era of the global advertising agency. They observe that corporations are moving towards placement of their worldwide advertising through a single agency, and they predict that a few large "mega. agencies" will take over a majority of international advertising accounts. Yet, no published studies have examined how many brands are actually handled by the same ad agency worldwide. This paper presents the results of a survey examining the extent to which U.S. companies use the same agency to advertise abroad and in the home market. The study found that of the brands sold abroad, only about one-third are handled by the same agency both at home and abroad. This proportion does not vary significantly with advertising budgets, by product class, or between standardized and non-standardized brands. In addition, no single-agency group or "mega-agency" handles more than eight percent of the sample brands, and no agency handles a majority of its U.S. brands abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]