Founded in 1901, Dentsu Inc.'s success in becoming Japan's top advertising agency, and the world's fifth-largest, reflects the nation's development from a sheltered, rural-based economy to an international high-tech powerhouse. Now, more than a century on, can Dentsu — and the rest of Japanese business — make the next step forward and become a truly global brand of the information age?
The issue of converting domestic dominance into global relevance has been a vexing one for Japan's businesses, with the shrinking domestic market forcing more to venture offshore, often with mixed results.
While Japan's advertising market is the world's second largest, Dentsu is expecting more from its global network of 27 countries, which contributed only a fraction of its $22 billion net sales in the latest fiscal year despite active efforts by the late President Yutaka Narita, who died two weeks ago, and his successors.