Producer Services Firms in Globalising Cities : the Example of Advertising Firms in Stockholm

This paper departs from prevailing ideas in current discussions about the critical role of advanced producer services for globalising cities. Saskia Sassen’s concept of global cities focuses on the function of advanced producer services and their role in the development of the central core of cities, i.e., the central business district (Sassen 1991, 1995). Peter Taylor and the research network GaWC have explored the global system of city-regions in empirical studies and contributed to conceptual development of the idea of globalising cities (http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/). The objective of this paper is to understand conceptually how one particular advanced producer service industry, the advertising industry, develops. The analysis considers this industry in the context of globalisation and post-modern economies. Advertising activities have consolidated into transnational organisations through holding companies and groups. The requirement from the side of clients not to be served by the same agency as its competitors means that the advertising agency offices have remained relatively modest in size (Taylor 2006). Advertising firms are a special case among professional business services in several aspects. This business is bridging what may be labelled the informational intensive post-industrial industries and the sign-intensive post-modern industries. Advertising plays an important role in the development of the post-modernisation of the economy in terms of the growing importance of sign-values of commodities. Advertising involves the production of sign-values. Advertising firms have recently faced fundamentally changing conditions. Globalisation of markets, new media for campaigns, new techniques, etc. have required and led to development of new solutions for clients’ marketing campaigns. The empirical analysis of the advertising industry in Sweden, and in Stockholm especially, in this paper is based on secondary sources including statistical data, firm directories, and business journals. The conclusions point towards the multi-scaled relations of advertising agencies. Relationships with clients tend to be local or national. At the same time, there are international intra-organisational connections and flows, which in an international arena influence the development of creative ideas as well as the forms and media for the distribution of advertising campaigns.