The Uses of Space by Advertising Agencies within the United Kingdom

Abstract

This paper contributes to an understanding of the geography of advertising by examining the practices of advertising agencies, their conceptions and uses of space. Most of their conceptualisation of targeted markets is said to be aspatial. Regions become important at the next stage when examining the distribution of the targeted market. Only the compositional effects of regional demand are considered. Contextual effects are largely ignored. The spatial practices of the agencies are dominated by regional weightings of advertising expenditure. Qualitative differences in advertising, such as regional tailoring, are much less common. Most regional weighting of advertising follows areas of existing high demand, thus reinforcing present consumption patterns. Such a process leads. in many cases, to the effective subsidising of existing areas of high demand because the differential costs of advertising are not passed on in proportionally differentiated prices of goods or services. Advertising is therefore spatially conservative and often regressive, because areas of high demand are frequently the most affluent. A discussion of the relationship between the location of advertising and its practices indicates a greater importance of space than agencies admit. The concentration of agencies in London and the South East suggests that they are more sensitive to developments in market segmentation in that region. The markets targeted by agencies in the nation as a whole may then reflect the degree and type of segmentation within the South East. Such spatial transfers of market segmentation may have a non-conservative, complex effect on patterns of demand.