International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

After World War II, a spurt in the growth of multinational companies and worldwide trade led to the concomitant growth of global advertising and marketing agencies, networks, and conglomerates (→ Media Conglomerates ) around the world. Such growth was the inevitable outcome of the need to coordinate the → advertising and → marketing of goods and services in the various markets that were joining the global trade flow and becoming part of the multinational market domain (→ Globalization Theories ). In the marketing mix, the global expansion of → public relations (PR) firms got a late start. However, in the 1950s, the growing realization of the cost-effectiveness of PR in relation to advertising and marketing, along with an increased understanding that PR can effectively support advertising and marketing efforts through reputation management, media relations, and relationship building with diverse publics around the world, led to the start of the expansion of international or global PR firms and networks (→ Professionalization of Public Relations ; Corporate Reputation ; Organizational Image ). The rate of expansion increased especially from the late 1980s onwards with the demise of the former Soviet Union, the spread of market globalization in more countries, the spatial compression enabled by new communication technologies and heightened travel, increasing global competition, ... log in or subscribe to read full text