Getting the message across

In 2010, Charm Communications, one of the biggest domestic advertising companies, went public and cooperated with Aegis Media, which helped the company to become an internationalized and specialized advertising group, said Dang.

"At the same time, Charm Communications has accelerated the upgrading of its operating standards, working tools, business distribution and company management," he added.

Qiao Jun said that during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), domestic advertising agencies will increasingly expand and multinationals' domination of China's advertising industry will probably change.

There may be tougher competition between locals and multinationals and the two parties may share the market equally, Qiao predicted. High-end talent would also flow back to domestic advertising companies.

With the growth of local clients and the development of Chinese advertising agencies, local companies have opportunities to grow bigger and stronger due to the large amount of and different level of clients, Dang said.

Chuang predicted that "advertising multinationals will maintain their leading position in China's advertising market for at least the next five years".

Challenges ahead

Although Tony Fan, the advertising agency owner, said small agencies like his, are more flexible than the larger ones, owning to low expenditure and flexible strategies, the advertiser, who graduated from Guanghua School of Management at Peking University, also expressed a pessimistic view of the possibility that local advertising agencies can overtake their international rivals.

He said 4A enterprises' development was closely related to their multinational clients' progress in China, but there is little chance that Chinese companies can create internationally recognized brands.

As newcomers to China, foreign advertising companies' fortunes are inextricably linked with their clients, multinational corporations such as Procter & Gamble and Unilever.

High-end talents are essential to the development of local agencies because advertising is a knowledge-intensive, technology-intensive, talent-intensive industry, Huang explained.

Shenan Chuang, who is also the founding chairman and the incumbent chairman of the Association of Accredited Advertising Agencies of China, also known as China 4A, which has 23 multinational members and 24 local members, said that Chinese advertising agencies should attach more importance to personnel training.

Few domestic agencies attended the personnel training sessions organized by China 4A a few years ago because Chinese companies are reluctant to pay for this kind of training.

Chinese advertising companies should improve their management abilities, build better operating systems and upgrade analytical tools to enlarge their business quickly in different cities in China, Chuang said.

In order to become global players, they should cooperate with each other through an industry association, she added.

mengfanbin@chinadaily.com.cn