The Dentsu Watch: Looking for big growth in overseas markets

November 5, 2007
By Ken Worsley

With the Dentsu brothel incident still fresh in the media, it seems interesting that the company is choosing now to announce its plans for large-scale overseas expansion. Currently, Dentsu ears 9% of its revenue from operations outside Japan, but the firm aims to boost that figure to 30% - though no time frame is given to reach such a goal.

If this article from the International Herald Tribune is on target, it seems that Dentsu will take its Japan strategy overseas: expand market share by buying out the competition. Will this translate into the sort of local knowledge and expertise necessary to expand overseas?

The article quotes Nick Mustoe, a managing director at the London-based Mustoes agency, as saying, “It seems to me that culturally, when [Japanese ad firms] expand, they do it to service a specific client need…They don’t start with a vision.”

Expansion through acquisition just might provide that vision.

Filed Under Advertising