When a director of the British advertising agency S. H. Benson International visited Singapore in 1962, he expressed the desire to see locally born staff assume a greater role in advertising. Declaring that locals “know best how to get the selling message across to their own people,” he ventured that advertising across Southeast Asia would “be conducted entirely by Asians in the near future.”Footnote 1 Three years later, Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper reported that the Australian advertising agency George Patterson was looking for “people with sound experience in the advertising business to assume a degree of responsibility not so easy to come by in Australia.” The successful applicants, it added, “will work on some of Australia’s best advertising accounts before being posted to Kuala Lumpur or Singapore.”Footnote 2 Both accounts offer a snapshot of the relationship between Singapore and the global advertising industry—although it was directly connected into the global advertising industry, Singapore was still only a peripheral part of it.
For Singapore, the 1950s and 1960s marked an important transitionary phase. With Britain gradually withdrawing from its former colonies, Singapore’s leaders identified the city’s future with its trading heritage. This strategy would assume an even greater importance from 1965, when Singapore was established as an independent city-state. Amid the Cold War struggle and regional instability, trade and foreign investment offered security.Footnote 3 Reconfirming its gateway status was therefore a priority. By announcing that it was open to the world, Singapore sold itself as a key point of intersection between the region and the broader world. Generous incentives were consequently offered to foreign businesses to open offices on the island state, and the Economic Development Board was created to facilitate a seamless entry into the Singapore market.Footnote 4 Singapore’s open-door policy was also applied to individuals from abroad whose skills and expertise were lacking on the island.Footnote 5 Arriving to serve their transnational clients, the transnational advertising agencies took advantage of this policy. Their Singapore offices therefore present a unique perspective of this flow of trade and skills both to and through the island state. Moreover, these offices offer an insight into the impact of colonialism on both Singapore and international advertising.
In their survey of research on Asian advertising since the 1990s, Hong Cheng and Kwangmi Ko Kim observe that although considerable work has been undertaken on advertising content and local consumers in Asia and Singapore, the history of advertising in the region has been marginal at best.Footnote 6 Michael Anderson’s Madison Avenue in Asia is one of the few critical accounts, offering a pioneering account into the advertising industry in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Using dependency theory, Anderson positions Singapore “as a Periphery nation or subunit of a larger, transnational industrial system controlled by Center nations” such as the United States, Britain, Japan, and Australia.Footnote 7 Within this theoretical model, the “control” exerted by center nations would ensure that Singapore’s agencies would remain subservient.Footnote 8 Anderson’s account has since been challenged because of the subsequent economic success enjoyed by Singapore (along with Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea, the other three “Asian Dragons”), the appropriateness of the media imperialism model, and the increased importance attributed to the procurement of local advertising accounts.Footnote 9 Although the dependency theory underpinning Anderson’s analysis has also fallen out of favor with scholars, Ilan Kapoor’s revisitation of the approach in relation to postcolonial theory reveals that despite their inherent differences, the two approaches nevertheless offer complementary insights.Footnote 10 To this end, Anderson’s analysis of the flows of staff, expertise, and knowledge between the periphery and the center(s) offers a useful field for further investigation that can be enhanced by examining the cultural aspects of such transfers and exchanges.
The significance of networks in a global commerce has attracted attention from business historians.Footnote 11 As Michael B. Miller argues in Europe and the Maritime World, “Networks … were the great conduits of knowledge, almost certainly the critical resource in the twentieth century.”Footnote 12 For transnational advertising agencies, the knowledge that was transferred through their networks not only provided them with advantages over their competitors, but it also facilitated their expansion into new markets. Noting that such transfers are “anchored in cultural practices” that involve “contingent feedback loops, and [are] anything but linear or logical,” Philip Scranton and Patrick Fridenson suggest that this multidirectional flow facilitated active relationships.Footnote 13 However, these relationships did not necessarily enhance equality. Such networks could therefore serve a governance function, ensuring that development in the periphery could be monitored and, if necessary, addressed to maintain consistency with the expectations of the center as well as those of the host society.Footnote 14 Networks also played an important role in maintaining hegemonic order within the far-flung parts of the agencies’ operations.Footnote 15 Although recent scholarship has raised questions about the level and nature of hegemonic control exerted from the center (particularly in the European setting),Footnote 16 this debate nevertheless confirms Raymond Williams’ assertion, “Hegemony is always an active process.”Footnote 17 An examination of these dynamic processes, as well as the transfers and exchanges that they facilitated, thus reveals some of the mechanics propelling the advertising agencies’ global expansion.Footnote 18
By identifying the different networks connecting Singapore to the global advertising industry, this article seeks to analyze the changing flow of skills and experience that predated the arrival of the American-led transnational agencies in the mid-1960s. Although Anderson observes that “the United States has largely become the strongest advertising power in this region by building upon already existing structures, including advertising agencies, largely developed by Britain during its colonial rule,” he makes no further comment on this process, let alone on its significance.Footnote 19 This transition presents an opportunity to reexamine the role of American agencies as well as British, Australian, and other Southeast Asian agencies in the globalization of the advertising agency industry. To this end, this article supports Stefan Schwarzkopf’s critique of the “Americanization paradigm” within advertising historiography, which has erroneously positioned American agencies as the progenitors of modern advertising that exported it to the world.Footnote 20
To uncover these networks, this article examines the reports concerning the activities of the agencies that were featured in the local press, most notably the Straits Times. Aside from the advertisements they created, these reports formed the agencies’ public face. Drawing on media releases, such reports obviously provide a highly mediated perspective on these agencies and the activities they hoped to publicize. However, their release and subsequent publication offer insights into the issues that were deemed to be important to these agencies and, indeed, of interest to the English-speaking readers of the Straits Times, as well as the newspaper’s own proprietors (who profited handsomely from the advertisements these agencies inserted into their columns) and the government (which had a strong interest in the media).Footnote 21 Although the genre of these sources prioritizes the activities of individuals and their publicity-seeking agencies, their presumed newsworthiness nevertheless provides snapshots that help reveal the broader exchanges and emerging networks occurring within the advertising industry.
Although the reports contained in the Straits Times certainly illustrate the transnational advertising agencies’ positioning of Singapore at the periphery of the global advertising industry, a closer reading of these reports reveals that this perspective denies any agency to local staff. These same networks also provided a conduit through which local advertising agency staff could enhance their own position, both within the agency ranks and, more broadly, within the global industry. Of course, this is not to say that these individuals were radically changing agency practices or outlooks—transnational agencies had little interest in acquiring companies that did not or could not conform to their expectations of good practice. As such, this article contends that although these networks established a structure that primarily served the interests of the agencies’ headquarters, they also provided a means by which those working in the periphery could move from being remote outposts to becoming more integrated parts of a global network. However, the reports also demonstrate that this integration would also be a gradual and uneven process.
Colonial Outposts
When Shakib (Gerry) Gunn arrived in Singapore in 1955, he recalled that “more than half a dozen agencies” were operating in the city.Footnote 22 The English names on his list gave little indication that they were in Southeast Asia. However, the local advertising industry was not entirely European-dominated. In his novel Fortune Cookie, Bryce Courtenay, who had worked as a creative director in Australia’s largest agencies and visited their Asian offices, provides an insight into the non-European agencies trading in the city during the early 1960s:
There were very few advertising agencies, in any meaningful sense of the term in Singapore at the time. Most were simply a couple of scurry back rooms along dirty corridors in old buildings. Chinese-owned advertising agencies were seen simply as an opportunity to make a little easy money.Footnote 23
To distance themselves from their Chinese competitors, the European-headed agencies instituted formal arrangements that capitalized on their intimate knowledge of colonial networks. By establishing the Association of Accredited Advertising Agents of Malaya (AAAAM) in 1948, they used media accreditation to exclude their Chinese competitors from the key media outlets. AAAAM membership also enhanced their business credentials to prospective clients. Two of the association’s foundation agencies were Masters and Young.Footnote 24 With their origins stretching back to the interwar period, these agencies still held colonial outlooks and colonial networks would continue to inform their activities in the postwar period.
Formed in 1928, Masters was Singapore’s oldest agency.Footnote 25 It had been established by Australian-born Ernest George Mozar, who had arrived in 1927. After the disruption caused by the war (Mozar was imprisoned by the Japanese), the agency regained its footing in the immediate postwar years.Footnote 26 On its twenty-first anniversary, the agency proudly proclaimed its Empire connections, boasting that it possessed “associates through the English-speaking world” and that it handled “English, American, Australian, Canadian and South African accounts.”Footnote 27 Over the coming decade, the agency’s Western orientation was reinforced through its appointments. Managers, as well as senior account service, creative, and reproduction staff, were sourced primarily from the UK and Australia.Footnote 28 A 1953 advertisement (for a junior account executive) appearing in the Sydney Morning Herald similarly affirmed its colonial heritage by describing itself as an “old established European Advertising Agency.”Footnote 29 By recruiting from Australia and the UK, Masters imported skills while maintaining and enhancing its global networks. However, such appointments also served a hegemonic function. The notion that the agency’s progress depended on imported skills reinforced the superiority of Western staff (and their place in the agency’s hierarchy) while positioning Singapore as peripheral. Here, as in other parts of Britain’s shrinking empire, this progress narrative helped justify the firm’s ongoing presence in a society in the throes of decolonization.Footnote 30
Although Masters grew substantially during the 1950s, its appointment policy was becoming problematic. In 1958, it proudly announced that it would be the first agency in Singapore to appoint a woman to its board. Originally from Sydney, the new board member, Mrs. R. S. McDougal, had spent ten years in Singapore.Footnote 31 Although Alec Jones’ appointment to managing director in 1959 revealed that agency had not yet abandoned its prioritization of white males from abroad, his outlook was different from those of his predecessors. Masters, he claimed, could not afford to ignore the local market: “To sell to Asians, advertising must have its root in Asian thought and this will only be possible if it were prepared by Asians on their home soil.”Footnote 32 Reports reveal that there was some investment in local staff. The agency’s studio manager, See Jock Tuan, for example, was sent to study in London, including serving a stint at the S. H. Benson agency. Although it was anticipated that the Masters’ art department would “be benefiting by the introduction of techniques and methods” acquired by Tuan in London, overseas trips such as these did little to alter the relationship between the center and the periphery.Footnote 33 Tuan’s sojourn was supported by his employer, with a view to feeding back to the periphery and maintaining the quality of Masters’ service. At a deeper level, such trips served a hegemonic role. On the one hand, they reinforced the divide between the advertising industry’s center and the periphery, whereas on the other, travelers developed an insight into the strategies underpinning Masters’ own operations and goals.
Masters’ association with London was formalized in 1959 when S. H. Benson’s international arm, Bensons Overseas Marketing & Advertising Service (BOMAS), together with another British agency, Colman Prentis Varley, were brought on board to restructure the agency.Footnote 34 This was part of a broader strategy that affiliated a series of agencies across the globe. In addition to major European and North American cities, the network also had offices in Bombay, Nairobi, and Bogota. Rebranded as “Masters (1959),” the reinvigorated Singapore agency similarly looked to enhance its own standing within the new order, opening a Kuala Lumpur office in 1960. An advertisement for the new branch revealed that it would be supported by the Singapore office.Footnote 35 In forming its own network, Masters (1959) moved to establish itself as a regional advertising center. However, its ambitions were also informed by an awareness of its own peripheral status. Such expansion would also help cast the agency (and its network) as a lucrative takeover prospect for transnational agencies. With its growth, networks, and conventional operational structure, Masters (1959) offered a convenient package to agencies looking to extend their own global networks as quickly and efficiently as possible. The strategy soon paid off, as BOMAS’ desire for a more coherent global presence would see it buy out Masters (1959) entirely in 1961. The new owners’ desire for a more coherent global entity would also see the removal of the Masters name from the shingle.Footnote 36
The Young agency was established by C. F. Young, whose advertising career had commenced before World War II at the Advertising and Publicity Bureau Ltd.Footnote 37 The agency did not survive the war, and in 1946 Young ventured out on his own. By the time he sold the agency to his nephew, Mike Hamersley, in 1953, it had established a strong presence. The British-born Hamersley had been resident in Singapore since 1949 but quickly acclimatized to his new surroundings. Described as a “stereotype of Singapore’s colonial past,” Hamersley had served as assistant commandant of the Volunteer Special Constabulary and the governor’s aide-de-camp.Footnote 38 Shakib Gunn, who had been recruited from London by Hamersley, recalls how the owners’ colonial attitude was embedded in the agency’s culture as much as its operations:
A sad reflection on colonial times was the inappropriate respect expatriates received, a beholden complex that did little to encourage participation by subordinate local staff. Amongst the expatriate staff, there was a tendency to submit to the style and behaviour of the CEO … following the pattern set by C. F. Young, expatriates wore white linen or sharkskin suits and often sported bow ties. The rest of the male staff dressed uniformly in white slacks and shirts.Footnote 39
In 1959, the British-based agency Royds Overseas Advertising and Marketing bought a share of Young.Footnote 40 The sale marked a shift in the agency’s operations. Renaming itself Young Advertising and Marketing, the agency declared that it was “available for local and overseas clients” and adopted a more research-oriented approach to its advertising. The focus on statistics and science evidently struck a chord with clients, and the agency soon acquired new accounts, including Caltex and the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board.Footnote 41 It also established a branch in Kuala Lumpur to service its all-important Beechams account.Footnote 42
Like Masters, Young assiduously maintained its international networks across Asia, Britain, and Europe through regular visits abroad and, indeed, by hosting overseas visitors.Footnote 43 Recruitment from Britain and, to a lesser extent, Australia similarly enabled the agency to retain its international currency while preserving the established social order within the agency itself.Footnote 44 Of course, such appointments did little to improve the disengagement identified by Gunn. However, reports also reveal that local members of staff were not entirely marginalized. Appointed assistant to the creative director in 1956, Leong Pak Hong had recently completed a diploma in art studies in Australia, whereas Henry Chia had completed a diploma in journalism and English literature in London.Footnote 45 As no mention was made of the agency suppporting their studies, both men’s studies were presumably self-funded. Their decision to take up their studies abroad, as well as their subsequent promotions upon their return, underscore and reinforced the agencies’ hegemonic order—progression up the ranks required training and experience that could be gained only abroad. The establishment of an international training scheme to send locals to Royds offices in London similarly maintained this center–periphery dichotomy.Footnote 46
In 1966, Royds sold out to London Press Exchange (LPE), which was seeking “to make it possible to provide effective administration and service with offices in all continents.”Footnote 47 Singaporean staff may have been little more than chattels to the London dealmakers, but they were not entirely passive observers either. Moves for a union within the agency’s ranks were temporarily “put aside by everyone so that a take over could be completed and a new phase begin.”Footnote 48 Even though labor unrest in Singapore would have scarcely upset the dealmakers, the agreement to suspend any union-related agitation demonstrated that staff and management alike understood that that their activities in Singapore could be registered in far-off London and might adversely affect their future relationship with the agency’s new masters. This tightening of the hegemonic order suggests that staff felt that the distance between the center and the periphery was decreasing.
LPE soon moved to distance itself from the Young brand, adopting LPE Singapore as its new title.Footnote 49 It also dealt with the union issue, agreeing to “accept the liability of its predecessor company and pay service benefits of its employees amounting to $94,000.”Footnote 50 The deal revealed that new management had indeed been monitoring the labor issues in Singapore. Although the continued appointment of Britons and Australians into key positions continued unabated, discernible moves to address staffing imbalances were being made.Footnote 51 Locals were promoted into key roles.Footnote 52 By 1968, a local was appointed to the agency’s board, prompting the Straits Times to comment that this “appointment marks a milestone in the history in local advertising agencies.”Footnote 53 However, LPE Singapore’s presence was relatively short-lived. Within three years, LPE merged with the American firm Leo Burnett.Footnote 54 Although the new entity was to be known as Leo Burnett-LPE, the Americans soon revealed that they believed that their inherited colonies required realignment. Having worked through the agency’s transitionary period, R. B. Anderson, Singapore’s managing director, was duly dispatched to the Chicago headquarters to study “the latest techniques in agency management and client service.”Footnote 55 A new order was emerging. As Chicago replaced London as the center of the agency’s operations, American experience and lessons similarly took precedence over experience gained elsewhere. For the Singapore office, this shift would prove to be a realignment rather than a radical departure from the standard practices of the past two decades. To this end, its place at the periphery of the advertising world appeared unchanged.
Regional Networks
Singapore’s connections with the region’s advertising industry were developed by Cathay Advertising . Established in Hong Kong by expatriate Australian Elma Kelly in 1946, Cathay commenced its regional expansion shortly afterward by opening a branch in Singapore.Footnote 56 By the mid-1950s, it had also added a Bangkok office. Although Cathay bore many of the hallmarks of the colonial agencies, its regional base and orientation also saw it adopt different strategies to enhance its networks and to develop a more transnational outlook.
Writing for the International Advertiser in 1963, Kelly outlined the agency’s operations and strategies. For a new client, each of Cathay’s offices would contribute to a market report that contained local and regional overviews. The ensuing campaigns demonstrated an understanding of the differences between these markets in terms of language and culture:
In Bangkok, we must have Thai language ads as well as the English and Chinese ads. In Singapore we have Malay and Tamil ads, as well as the English and Chinese. You will see the artists in Singapore and Bangkok have made slight alterations to our basic artwork. Here now is the ad in five languages: English, Chinese, Siamese, Malay and Tamil.Footnote 57
Tapping into colonial attitudes and networks was equally important. Kelly consequently explained the need to advertise to the English market in each of these countries: “Otherwise, the Oriental buyers are doubtful. They think it’s only a second grade product, or why not English advertising.”Footnote 58
Unlike Young and Masters, Cathay’s global network expanded via Sydney rather than through the capital of the British Empire. The relationship was spurred by Colgate-Palmolive’s decision to open a plant just outside Kuala Lumpur in 1961.Footnote 59 As the Australian-based George Patterson agency was Colgate-Palmolive’s closest major agency, it was invited to handle the regional account. Unable to service the account from Australia, George Patterson sought closer connections with Cathay. In 1963 it announced that George Patterson had “acquired a substantial financial interest in Cathay” and that “Cathay would now be able to call upon top Australian advertising personnel, and their research knowledge.”Footnote 60 When announcing the deal, Kelly observed that the move was an inevitable consequence of emerging patterns in international business: “Because of the international aspects of marketing today and the closer relationship between Australasia and the Far East there are obvious advantages for all parties in such a deal.”Footnote 61
Developments taking place in Australia would have a bearing on Cathay’s operations. Since the arrival of the giant American agency McCann-Erickson in 1959, the Australian market had been attracting increasing interest from international agencies.Footnote 62 In addition to being a wealthy market in its own right, Australia also offered a convenient springboard for agencies looking to enter into the East and Southeast Asian markets. As McCann-Erickson’s buyout of a local agency had revealed the profitability of selling out to international interests eager to expand into the Asia-Pacific region, Australian agencies began to pay closer attention to their Asian neighbors.Footnote 63 With clients like Colgate-Palmolive placing pressure on George Patterson to form an international connection, the Australian agency commenced talks with Ted Bates, Colgate-Palmolive’s agency in the United States. As Alex Hamill recalls, Cathay’s regional network emerged as an important part of the deal. The former head of the Singapore office recounts the story of the negotiations between Bill Farnsworth, head of George Patterson, and the American suitors:
When asked by the then head of the US agency “we assume you could also handle the account in Asia ?” Bill replied “of course.” So he sold Patts without any other branches apart from Sydney Melbourne and Brisbane. Undaunted Farnsworth flew to Hong Kong and made Elma Kelly … an offer she could not refuse. She had no idea her company Cathay was the only one that could give Bill what he had already promised to provide to Bates.Footnote 64
Farnsworth’s dramatic dash to Hong Kong was presumably to secure a greater part of the business, as the deal between George Patterson and Ted Bates was formally announced in March 1964. The takeover prompted one Australian trade journal to observe that it “represents one of the facts of life bound up in the ever-increasing internationalisation of business.”Footnote 65 Underscoring the degree to which the industry had become transnational, the now U.S.-owned/Australian-directed/Hong Kong-headquartered agency opened an office in Kuala Lumpur.Footnote 66
Geographic proximity enabled the Australian agency to cultivate strong links with its Singapore branch. The flow of staff and expertise between the offices duly increased in the wake of George Patterson’s complete buyout of Cathay. In January 1964, for example, Cathay announced that it would be establishing a market research department. The new department would be headed by Eric Kok, who had recently returned from a six-month training stint in Sydney.Footnote 67 Although George Patterson was keen to see its acquisition progress, the primary motivation for its investment in Cathay’s research capacity became apparent months later, when the new department was commissioned to undertake a survey on behalf of the Australian government and Australian manufacturers to gauge Australia’s share of the food market.Footnote 68 Despite George Patterson’s role in identifying this account and implementing measures to ensure its procurement, the task of securing the account still required a local presence with the capacity to do the required job. To this end, the foundations of a more interdependent relationship can be discerned.
Although Cathay ultimately fell under Ted Bates’ control, it was George Patterson who took responsibility for overseeing Cathay’s operations. Few, if any, Americans worked there. The CEO of the Singapore office, Alan Green, was an Englishman who had been in Singapore since the war. George Patterson’s hegemonic control was evident in Green’s behavior when Farnsworth traveled through Singapore. During these visits, the gregarious Green toned down his behavior, as he “lived in fear that one day Bill would find him out” and fire him.Footnote 69 George Patterson’s presence was further underscored by the expatriate staff moving through the agency, who tended to be Australian, although British advertising agents occasionally found their way into the ranks.Footnote 70
Cathay also took an active interest in local staff. Owing to “continued growth,” the agency invited Singapore citizens to apply as trainee copywriters and account executives.Footnote 71 George Patterson’s call for trainees to come to Australia “before being posted to Kuala Lumpur or Singapore” revealed that Cathay’s Australian partners were also involved in this process.Footnote 72 For George Patterson, the improvement of local skills not only developed greater consistency across the network, but it also safeguarded its own regional importance and, in turn, its strategic significance within the Ted Bates global network. Training also facilitated the agency’s progress narrative, justifying its presence in the state and, more generally, in the region. This was particularly important for offices across the Johor Strait, where Malaysia’s affirmative action bumiputra policy compelled the Kuala Lumpur branch to be more active in recruiting locals to senior positions.Footnote 73
By the 1970s, Cathay was being drawn closer into the Bates orbit. The American owners’ desire to see their Singapore office “assume the group image and identity” led to its being renamed Ted Bates Limited/Singapore in 1974.Footnote 74 Such a move signaled a desire to see New York replace Sydney as the center of the regional network. Although the Cathay name had been subsumed into the Ted Bates network, local staff had become more important and the agency moved to place locals in more prominent positions—the first Singaporean was appointed to the local board 1977.Footnote 75 Such moves reflected the growing importance ascribed to local appointments within management circles yet they were facilitated by the training of local staff within agency’s regional networks during the 1960s. By using exchanges as a means to develop the skills, experience, and appropriate ideological outlook, agencies such as Cathay were developing a local elite whose contribution would extend beyond local office into the agency network.
Global Networks
Although the colonial and regional networks had been feeding into global advertising networks, concerns about coherence of service prompted some agencies to adopt a more systematic approach to developing their global networks. As the activities of S. H. Benson reveal, this approach was very much driven from the center, with a view to positioning Singapore and the Asian region within a broader global context.
As the Masters (1959) agency was being rechristened Benson (Singapore), its parent company was also extending the Benson name across the region.Footnote 76 Operations were extended into Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Australia (the last being mooted as a possible training ground for Singapore and Malaysian staff).Footnote 77 This expansion revealed an intensification of the links between Singapore and the global industry. Benson’s offices in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Hong Kong all fell under the auspices of the director of the “Far East” region. D. A. Bain served as the inaugural regional chairman before moving to the board of the agency’s Australian operations.Footnote 78 Bain’s successor was J. T. A. Rohan, who had formerly been the advertising manager of the Shell Company’s Singapore operations—one of the agency’s key clients.Footnote 79 His background illustrated the connection between the agency’s regional and global strategies:
Rohan’s appointment ties in with the Benson International policy which is the development of local talent with the assistance of international “know-how”. Regional development is the keynote of the policy as the recent establishment of offices in many overseas countries shows.Footnote 80
With his intimate understanding of a major global client, the director of the Far East ensured that his network would offer the type of service that Shell—and, indeed, other global accounts—expected from their agencies.
The regular flow of key Benson personnel though the Far East offices indicated that the global offices were becoming links in a global network.Footnote 81 Although such visits facilitated greater surveillance of activities in the network’s peripheries, it also provided an opportunity to reposition the center and the periphery. In November 1965, the head of the agency’s international operations, Philip Stobo, “arrived in Singapore … to find the local Benson office on strike” for better retirement and pay benefits.Footnote 82 The union claimed that it had been “a coincidence” that the strike occurred as the international dignitary was arriving yet staff would have been well aware that such a dignitary would be passing through their office.Footnote 83 They anticipated that their actions would necessitate a response—either by management hoping to avoid embarrassment or, indeed, by direct intervention from Stobo. The strike’s timing and its impact on the international visitor enhanced its newsworthiness and enabled the strikers’ to get their claims published.Footnote 84 However, the strategy of playing off local management’s concerns about saving face in the eyes of its center did not pan out as hoped. By leaving it to the Labour Ministry to initiate conciliation talks (to take place after Stobo’s departure), Benson’s management effectively sidestepped the issue. Such actions also demonstrate that the agency understood that the head office was not necessarily the center of its operations. The agency’s actions suggest that they were aware that the Singapore government had been actively restricting union activity to stimulate international investment in the island-state.Footnote 85 Their outcome notwithstanding, the strikers’ efforts revealed a growing awareness of their place in the agency’s global network.
By 1966, American advertising’s global expansion caught up with Bensons. After protracted negotiations, S. H. Benson announced that it would be merging with the American agency Needham, Harper & Steers.Footnote 86 For the Singapore office, it was an inauspicious beginning. The announcement was followed by the revelation that the agency was in a “bad financial situation” and its attendant decision to sack 28 staff members resulted in a strike.Footnote 87 Although the dispute was resolved by the time that William Steers visited his new Southeast Asian acquisitions as part “of the two agencies’ programme of familiarisation,” the echoes of the past still resonated.Footnote 88 With staffing numbers cut, the agency understood that needed to pay closer attention to the resources at hand. Developing talent from within therefore became a priority that not only boosted the agency’s capacities, but would also help improve staff morale and, of course, facilitate the standard agency strategem of assimilating the new management’s outlook and interests. Appointed client services supervisor, Francis Fong was “the first local employee to be appointed to this position” as part of the agency’s policy of “promotion from within.”Footnote 89 Koh Hun Boon similarly made news as “the first local citizen to be appointed to the boards of the companies in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.”Footnote 90 The report added, “The company employs almost 150 people in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, of whom more than 90 per cent are local citizens.”Footnote 91 However, the agency had not entirely dispensed with past practices—key positions such as creative director continued to be awarded to British and Australian expatriates.Footnote 92
The Needham, Harper & Steers reign proved temporary; in 1971 it was taken over by the New York-based, British-led Ogilvy and Mather. Although it was reported that the Singapore and Malaysian branches would not be affected “to any major extent by the merger, apart from a change of name,” the subsequent claim that “local clients will be provided with a more comprehensive and direct international service” hinted that the new owners wanted the Singapore office brought into line.Footnote 93 As with George Patterson’s takeover of Cathay, the realities soon became clear. Michael Ball, the Australian-born managing director of Ogilvy Benson and Mather (UK) and chairman of Ogilvy and Mather (Australia and New Zealand) arrived in Singapore shortly after the takeover to familiarize himself with the new office and to “ensure that the local staff is aware of the company’s management and operating policies.”Footnote 94 Ball’s appointment not only put the Ogilvy and Mather stamp on its latest acquisition office, but it also reflected its place in the network. Although it did not operate on the same footing as New York or London, Singapore and its advertising industry were no longer a colonial outpost or a minor regional center; Singapore had become an important and highly integrated node in the global advertising network.
Conclusion
The decades spanning the 1950s and 1960s reveal the changing connections between Singapore’s advertising agencies and the global advertising industry. Although they had established informal networks with the international advertising industry in the interwar period, the 1950s and 1960s saw these agencies move from colonial outposts to becoming increasingly integrated components of transnational agencies’ global networks. As such, the activities of Singapore agencies during this period illustrate the evolution of the global advertising industry and the social and cultural forces helping to drive it, as well as Singapore’s place in it. To this end, this article supports Espen Ekberg and Even Lange’s claim that micro-oriented studies offer unique insights into “the inner workings of the globalisation process.”Footnote 95 By revisiting dependency theory in relation to postcolonial theory, this paper supports Kapoor’s claim that dependency theory’s “statist and ‘holistic’ perspective, while not without reproach, is a cautionary note to postcolonial theory’s decentred … ‘globalisation from below approach’.”Footnote 96 Advertising’s networks thus provided frameworks that informed agency structures and operations. However, they also presented a means by which alternative views could be voiced—and, indeed, heard.
Networks were integral to the development of Singapore’s advertising agencies. They enabled local agencies to establish connections with global clients looking to enter the local and/or the Southeast Asian regional markets. Moreover, networks facilitated the international flow of advertising information, knowledge, and skills that would enhance their service to prospective clients. Even though Singapore was in the process of decolonization, colonial networks continued to exert significant influence over the ways that advertising agencies saw themselves and their operations. This was most clearly reflected in the agencies’ staffing policies. Recruitment for senior positions occurred in London and Sydney, not in Singapore. These positions were overwhelmingly the domain of white males, and the appointment of a handful of white women into these posts further confirmed the racial hierarchy within the agency. For local staff, training in Britain or Australia offered a means by which they could progress up the ranks. Such initiatives served to reinforce the sense that Singapore was a mere colony and that “real” advertising experience could be gained only at the center of the Empire or, at the very least, one of its dominions.
The suitability of the colonial model would also be recognized by the American agencies when they arrived in the mid-1960s. Even as they prioritized American experience, they continued to appoint Britons and Australians to senior positions. As these processes involved a reorientation of existing networks and strategies rather than a complete overhaul of them, they cast further questions about the “Americanization paradigm” and the implication that global advertising practice merely followed in the Americans’ wake. Of course, this is not to say that American ideas and methods were not integrated into agency practice—they certainly were. However, the experience of Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s reveals that this process was filtered through London and Sydney. The involvement of these intermediaries in these processes reiterates the notion that Americanization was neither “monolithic nor homogenic.”Footnote 97
Viewed from the agencies’ head offices in London, New York, Chicago, and even Sydney, Singapore was considered peripheral, but by no means inconsequential. Its peripheral status within the agency networks was reinforced by staffing policies. The appointment of expatriate Britons and Australians meant that the agencies’ senior staffers landed in Singapore with a sense of it being peripheral. Working on fixed-term contracts scarcely altered this perception, as most planned to return to the center. The strategic dispatching of problematic staff to “the Far East” similarly underscored the region’s peripheral status, not to mention the colonial attitude that low-quality staff from the center could help improve the agency’s Asian offices. Training initiatives likewise prioritized experience at the center. Sending locals to train in Britain, Australia, or the United States helped reinforce these individuals’ primacy within the agency networks. Those who funded their own training trips to these centers similarly bought into and, indeed, perpetuated this standpoint (and profited from it in the process). The colonial outlook was also expressed by the agencies’ ambivalent attitude toward local accounts. Local knowledge and contacts thus seemed to offer little to the global agency—unless, of course, it was complemented by international experience.
In positioning Singapore at the periphery, the agency head office created a self-fulfilling prophecy that conveniently overlooked the activities and initiatives of local agencies and their staff. Cathay, for example, had independently established its own successful regional network before going on to constitute an important part of the broader Ted Bates network and its global strategy. Such networks also provided a means by which local staff could strengthen their place within the global advertising industry. As the examples of industrial action reveal, local staff understood that they were connected to a large organization and that this provided them with an opportunity to tap into networks’ “feedback loops” to improve their working conditions. Although training trips abroad inculcated local staff with Western outlooks, they nevertheless provided a means by which these staffers could subsequently progress up the ranks and to play a more active role in localizing a transnational agency’s operations—skills that would become an asset over the coming decades as agencies increasingly prioritized local accounts.
Toward the end of the 1960s, the importance of local input was attracting attention from advertising insiders and observers alike. The Straits Times ran a feature on the small but growing number of locals taking up key roles in the transnational agencies.Footnote 98 It featured the achievements of Henry Chia, account director at LPE Singapore; Inch Abu Bakar, director and accountant at LPE Singapore; and Koh Hun Boon, now company secretary of S. H. Benson (Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong). In claiming that their success was “setting the current trend in the local advertising industry,” the report demonstrated that locals could make it on the world stage. Tellingly, the article also emphasized the men’s hard work and dedication, intimating that international recognition had stemmed from these efforts. Stating that “Singapore now ranks second only to Japan among Asian nations in advertising know-how and research,” it also underscored the importance of the flow of skills and expertise between the center and the periphery, and the degree to which Singapore subsequently profited from its status.
Ian Batey illustrated the other side of this story. Arriving from Australia in 1969 to work in one of the transnational agencies, Batey established his own locally based creative agency to serve local clients, such as Singapore Airlines. Even though Batey readily imported staff, his agency successfully forged a creative reputation internationally that would further challenge the centre/periphery dichotomy in advertising circles.Footnote 99 The success stories of locals (both home-grown and adopted) ultimately went beyond the individual. To this end, the local admen’s achievements within the “fiercely competitive world of international advertising” not only fed back into the global advertising industry, but they also set an example that the fledgling city-state could emulate in its own efforts to progress beyond being a peripheral market in the global context.
