Dentsu

For almost 100 years we have pursued a single mission: to offer our clients the most innovative, distinctive, and diversified communications solutions. The Total Communications system, which Dentsu pioneered, is the key to creating integrated platforms that address each client's specific needs. We are fully committed to creating new solutions that effectively capture the public's imagination through a wide range of communications tactics and activities. Dentsu's communications solutions are built upon insights into our global marketplace, and upon in-depth knowledge of consumer behavior. These insights give rise to creative ideas that have the power to influence people and, at times, to even impact the structure of the market. Our top priority is to tap this creativity to ensure that even more great ideas see the light of day. The ideas and the creativity are made possible by the people of Dentsu, the company's greatest asset, and the best assurance that Dentsu clients everywhere will continue to succeed and prosper. Worldwide, the people of Dentsu give the company its special presence, the unique combination of intellect, sensitivity, imagination, compassion and vitality. It is the people of Dentsu that have made the company what it is today, and will continue to do so in years to come. Key Dates: Telegraphic Service Company and Japan Advertising Ltd. merge to form Nihon Denpo-Tsushin Sha (later shortened to Denstu). Dentsu Inc. is the largest advertising agency in Japan, with a domestic market share of over 20 percent and an extensive network of overseas subsidiaries. The company also has strong ties to Japanese media, with shares in a number of newspapers and television networks. It is also the leading advertising company in Asia, with offices in 11 countries. For over 20 years Dentsu has maintained seven subsidiaries in the United States through a joint venture with Young & Rubicam. The company further strengthened its international position in 2000, when it assumed a 20 percent stake in Bcom3 Group, Inc.-the result of a merger between advertising firms The Leo Group and The MacManus Group--the fourth largest advertising holding company in the world. Dentsu traces its origins to 1901, when Hoshiro Mitsunaga, a journalist from Osaka, founded two closely related companies: Telegraphic Service Company, an international news wire service; and Japan Advertising Ltd., a broker of advertising space. Mitsunaga often took payment for his wire service in the form of ad space in newspapers, then resold the ad space to his clients. The two companies merged in 1907, under the name Japan Telegraphic Communication Company (Nihon Denpo-Tsushin Sha). This compound name became shortened to Dentsu. Dentsu secured monopoly rights to distribute the United Press wire service in Japan, giving the company unique leverage over the newspapers it serviced. Dentsu was able to use its influence to get favorable rates for advertising space and, as early as 1908, the company was the acknowledged leader in Japan's communications industry. Dentsu began collecting and publishing statistics on advertising volume in 1909, the first to do so in Japan. By 1912, the company had headquarters in Tokyo's fashionable Ginza district. Dentsu was the largest broker of advertising space in Japan almost from its inception. However, the agency was practically dismantled in the prewar years. In 1936, the Japanese government formed its own news service, Domei, and Dentsu had to surrender its wire service. Then in 1943, the government consolidated all existing advertising agencies into 12 entities. Dentsu controlled four of the 12 agencies, but because of the war, business dwindled. Founder Mitsunaga died in 1945. There were two intervening presidents, and then the company began to rebuild under the leadership of the remarkable Hideo Yoshida. Yoshida had worked for Dentsu through the war, and he took over the presidency in 1947. Yoshida was known as 'the big demon,' an