After ignoring the changes going on in the rest of the world for so
long, Japan's advertising industry must now be quaking in its boots as
major clients are beginning to drop Japanese agencies in favour of their
multinational counterparts. The Twentieth Century Fox media account move
to MindShare and the major Nestle business switch to J. Walter Thompson
are two very recent examples.
Japanese agencies are losing ground largely because their operational
structures are better suited to the 90s when advertising and
media-buying were the revenue earners and everything else was added
value. Clients these days want agencies with proven abilities in all
disciplines. The cracks have begun to appear.
