Repackaging globalization: A case study of the advertising industry in China

This paper analyzes the transformation of China’s advertising industry as a result of China’s economic reforms and the globalization of the advertising industry. Spatially clustered in the city-regions of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the industry has been structurally and operationally integrated with the global advertising giants, as well as developing local strategies to attract the interest of local consumer markets. While the entry of global multinational advertising businesses has compelled China’s advertisers to accept and adapt to the industry’s globalized institutions, standards, operational procedures and corporate culture, the transformation of China’s advertising industry is best understood as a consequence of the interaction between globalization and localization.     

Creative industries, creative class and competitiveness: Expert opinions critically appraised

In the debate on urban and regional competitiveness, it has become fashionable to stress the growing importance of creativity for economic development. Especially scientist-consultants with a keen eye for what politicians and business people want to hear have taken centre stage in this discussion. Each city and region in the advanced capitalist world seems to prefer a label as creative city or region, and all look after the same type of industries and try to produce the same set of conditions, while investing in higher education and research institutes, networking and lobbying institutions, and the promotion of spin-off companies. A vast number of leaders and spokesmen of local and regional (quasi) governments believe that a major thing to do is to become more attractive places to live for creative knowledge workers or the ‘creative class’, as it is euphemistically labelled.However, in academia there is a lot of scepticism with regard to the use of these concepts and their meaning for urban and regional competitiveness. Also citizen movements and NGOs, and some political parties, voice their concern about the extent to which policies that apply these concepts and ideas might only benefit an elite of higher educated, well- paid professionals while at the same time these policies might result in decline of other activities and in social polarisation and poverty as well.In this paper we contribute to the critical discussion through a critical appraisal of local experts’ views on developments in seven European city-regions, first with regard to policies towards the development of creative and knowledge-intensive industries; and secondly with regard to the impact the development of ‘creative knowledge regions’ may have in social and other respects. In contrast to the rather homogeneous yet dominant advice to facilitate ‘the creative class’, in this paper we will argue that a range of parameters related to the firms and regional institutional, geographical and historical contexts promote a much more diversified view on urban economic development.