The Advertising Industry

The advertising industry is dominated by three huge advertising networks, which offer their services throughout the world. Gross income of the three leading agencies is twice as much, as the one of places four to ten.

Table: World's Top 10 Advertising Organizations 1999

(figures in millions of U.S. dollars)

Rank 1999

 Advertising Organization

 Headquarters

 World-Wide Gross Income 1999
1

 Omnicom

New York, USA

 $ 5,743.4
2

 Interpublic Group of Cos.

 New York, USA

 $ 5,079.3
3

 WPP Group

 London, UK

 $ 4,819.3
4

 Havas Advertising

 Levallois-Perret, France

 $ 2,385.1
5

 Dentsu

 Tokyo, Japan

 $ 2,106.8
6

 B Com3 Group

 Chicago, USA

 $ 1,933.8
7

 Young & Rubicam Inc.

 New York, USA

 $ 1,870.1
8

 Grey Advertising

 New York, USA

 $ 1,577.9
9

 True North

 Chicago, USA

 $ 1,489.2
10

 Publicis SA

 Paris, France

 $ 1,434.6


Table: Top 10 Global Marketers 1998

(figures in millions of U.S. dollars)

Rank 1998

 Advertiser

 Headquarters

 World-Wide Media Spending 1998
1

 Procter & Gamble Co.

 Cincinnati (US)

 $ 4,747.6
2

 Unilever

 Rotterdam (NL)/London (UK)

 $ 3,428.5
3

 General Motors Corp.

 Detroit (US)

 $ 3,193.5
4

 Ford Motor Co.

 Darborn (US)

 $ 2,229.5
5

 Philip Morris Cos.

 New York

 $ 1,980.3
6

 Daimler Chrysler

 Stuttgart (GER)/Auburn Hills (US

 $ 1,922.2
7

 Nestle

 Vevey (SUI)

 $ 1,833.0
8

 Toyota Motor Corp.

 Toyota City (JP)

 $ 1,692.4
9

 Sony Corp.

 Tokyo (JP)

 $ 1,337.7
10

 Coca-Cola Co.

 Atlanta (US)

 $ 1,327.3


On the other hand the three biggest advertisers only spend about US$ 2 millions less than places four to ten together. Whereas money spent on advertising in traditional media comes from very diverse categories, companies offering computer hard- and software, peripherals or Internet services mainly pay for on-line advertisements.

Table: Top 10 Internet Advertisers 1998

(figures in millions of U.S. dollars)

Rank 1998

 Advertiser

 Internet Spending 1998

 1998 - 1997 % Change
1

 Microsoft Corp.

 $ 34.9

 9.4
2

 IBM Corp.

 $ 28.5

 58.6
3

 Compaq Computer Corp.

 $ 16.2

 169.8
4

 General Motors Corp.

 $ 12.7

 84.8
5

 Excite

 $ 12.4

 1.5
6

 Infoseek Corp.

 $ 9.3

 22.3
7

 AT&T Corp.

 $ 9.3

 43.5
8

 Ford Motor Co.

 $ 8.6

 46.7
9

 Hewlett-Packard Co.

 $ 8.1

 102.9
10

 Barnes & Noble

 $ 7.6

 280.2


Source: Advertising Age

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Roman smoke telegraph network, 150 A.D.

The Roman smoke signals network consisted of towers within visible range of each other and had a total length of about 4500 kilometers. It was used for military signaling.

For a similar telegraph network in ancient Greece see Aeneas Tacitus' optical communication system.

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