All of the top advertising agencies used to be headquartered in New York, along famous Madison Avenue in the heart of Manhattans financial district. If you watch the HBO show Mad Men (since picked up by another network in syndication) you will see the fictional characters working at fictional agencies on Madison Avenue, hence the term Mad Men. In the 50s and 60s the top advertising agencies were all run by men and it was a total boys club that women were not allowed to enter, except as secretaries or receptionists. These guys chain smoked at their desks all day long and drank heavily every night while wining and dining clients at fancy restaurants and bars.
Those days are long gone and many are thankful for that, especially women and minorities who now play a much larger role in todays top advertising agencies. Things have changed dramatically in the last twenty years. Graphic Designers were always treated like technical flunkies and were usually not given the opportunity to rise above Art Director status. All of the Creative Directors (CDs) came from the copywriting departments and once you were a CD, you could hope to make partner or V.P. with a few years of ridiculously long hours and hard work under your belt.
Todays top advertising agencies are ones that have survived in the age of the internet and have adapted their services to fit the cyber worlds heavy demands. Thirty years ago ad agencies did not even have computers. Typesetting was done by hand with press on type that you bought at the Art supplies store. Typefaces were limited and you had to be very careful that you did not mess up or else you had to start all over again. God forbid that the Account Executive or the client changed the headline at the last minute. Deadlines were very tight back in the good old days and you had to manually crank out fifty to one hundred ads in one day (and all night) for delivery the next morning to the newspapers.
Of course today all the top advertising agencies have state of the art computer systems, mostly Mac but some PCs too. The employ small armies of Graphic Designers that use software like InDesign and Photoshop CS.
Most of the top advertising agencies now also do online ads and that means that the artists have to have proficiency in HTML, Flash, Dreamweaver, and other website building software. By being so technical some of the artistic side of the craft has definitely suffered. But because the airwaves are slammed and jammed with so many visuals and loud attention hogging banners, the top advertising agencies are forced to become more creative than ever in their attempt to get their clients message through to their target audiences. Most ad campaigns cost so much that the ad agencies use focus groups to get reactions before spending any money.
Although techniques and technologies have changed over the years, the goal of top advertising agencies around the world have stayed the same and that is sell more products for their clients.