Organizational buying and advertising agency-client relationships in china

The 1980s and 1990s have seen the development of an interesting, diverse, and relevant body of literature on the advertising agency-client relationship. In recent times, an area of focus has been the application of organizational buying behavior principles to companies that are purchasing advertising services from advertising agencies. However, little is known about the application of such theories in the context of a developing country. After examining the literature relating to China's advertising industry and the application of organizational buying behavior principles in the advertising industry, this article reports on a survey of 200 firms in Shanghai. The results unexpectedly show that advertising agency power in the campaign development process is not related to the nature of the advertising task (new task, modified rebuy, straight rebuy) at hand. In addition, bottom-up processes give agencies the weakest power, and the client buying process is dominated by marketers, the salesforce, and public relations, with top managers the primary deciders.