ABSTRACT
If one wants to understand how the advertising industry works, one needs to find out how money is circulated among the different players in that industry. ‘Follow the money’ is a good principle for anybody trying to find out about the organization and structure of any industry (and, indeed, about the whys and wherefores of particular government policies) anywhere in the world. Advertising industries everywhere are structured around accounts – the sums of money put aside by advertisers and allocated to agencies for the purpose of selling a particular brand or product group, sometimes through a selected medium. When clients have money to spend, agencies flourish; when they don’t, they struggle. Accounts provide the sums of money that enable advertising and media organizations to function in the first place. Accounts are not simply sums of money. Like art objects, they bring with them certain values that are not purely economic, but derive from their ownership (or provenance), history and association.
