Four years ago, we wrote a document that addressed the future of the regional advertising industry. Our objective was to analyze the evolution of our business worldwide, to understand the international trends influencing marketing-communication and to project the relevance of those trends on our own markets. Once our strategy was established, we worked against the clock to ensure that we would be in the most favorable position moving forward. The adverting industry has changed a lot and is still changing. Some aspects of the agency’s work are now carried out externally. When I started in advertising, the agency was known to be “the marketing arm” of the client. Gradually, a sizeable portion of the marketing role of the agency moved to the client. Equally, the agency had historically been responsible for the client’s media needs. With the advent of media independents (MBU’s), that role too moved out of the agency’s
