Advertising, as we know it today, had its genesis in the US at the turn of the 20th century. It essentially helped to differentiate commoditised products after mass production. Quaker Oats started using the image of the Quaker male, Pear’s Soap, Campbell’s sop and Coca Cola were quick to associate visual imagery with the products. This created ‘brands’ with image which may not align with the physical features of the product. That invested the products with a personality. Soap manufacturers overdid this on radio and later on TV and created a genre of programmes called soap operas. Ad agencies emerged out of this to communicate the brand values to consumers and to ensure proper placement of ads in the media, both print, and radio. They created print layouts and radio jingles. Later agencies provided services to the emerging cinema and TV media.

In the mid 1980’s, the first disruption came about. The founding icons such as Ogilvy, Young and Rubicam hung their boots. Their place was taken by finance-oriented new breed such as Martin Sorrel. They leveraged the agencies and created holding companies. The aim was to generate enough surplus to pay off the debts. Instead of brand management and positioning, the key words were profits and cost management.

As years rolled by, the full service agencies disaggregated. There were separate agencies for creatives and for media. There were PR agencies, and Internet media companies. They took up even the planning and buying role. Publishers started running full-fledged departments to create ads altogether bypassing the agencies.

Internet brought about disintermediation in many other industries, e.g. travel, recruitment, shares and securities.

Media audience has massively shifted to mobile phones.

Ad agencies are being reinvented. In fact, the whole of media is being reinvented.