Absence and the advertising historian

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the commonly held idea that American advertising agencies closely supervised their Australian counterparts during the globalization of advertising.

Design/methodology/approach

The author, a cultural historian based in the USA, searched American archives without finding evidence of the kind of oversight often associated with the Americanization of advertising.

Findings

The paper concludes that American advertisers paid less attention to Australian advertising than the other way around. In addition, Australian and American advertising industries agreed on the importance of advertising as part of transnational capitalism and did not need to outline, or follow instructions, on how advertising worked.

Originality/value

Reviewing the history of advertising in a global context reminds scholars that the national advertising industries have different subject positions and yet agree on advertising’s practice and efficacy.

Citation

Smulyan, S. (2016), "Absence and the advertising historian", Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 473-480. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHRM-05-2016-0011