ABOUT GLOBAL MARKETERS 2011
Advertising Age's DataCenter produced the Global Marketers report.

Global marketers that became the Global 100 were collated from media lists from 95 countries (plus breakouts for Hong Kong, Puerto Rico and the Pan Arab region) and provided by monitoring services. Primary sources of data by country include Kantar Media (known as TNS in some countries); Nielsen Co.; Ibope (Latin America); AGB Nielsen Media Research; Pan Arab Research Center; Synovate (East Africa); Sigma Conseil (North and Western Africa) and Ifat (Israel). (See each country or the source links tab for links.) In some cases, monitoring services are licensees or partners of Nielsen or Kantar. Other independent companies also supplied data. Interpublic's McCann Erickson and UM, Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi and WPP's JWT and Group M contributed significantly to the report.

To determine the top advertisers in each country, Ad Age DataCenter started with listings from monitoring services that ranged from as few as five advertisers in smaller countries to as many as 500 advertisers in larger countries. In all cases, the Ad Age DataCenter aggregated spending by parent company. For example, Asda spending in the U.K. is attributed to WalmartStores for the Global 100 ranking. Data reported by brand were similarly summed by parent advertiser. (Wrigley is included in Mars, for example.)

Ad Age DataCenter determined the Global 100 by combining media-spending data from 95 countries (plus breakouts for Hong Kong, Puerto Rico and the Pan Arab region), using data contributed by media-tracking services. To qualify as "global," a marketer had to have reported media spending in at least three major regions.

Several major U.S. companies--including VerizonCommunications and AT&T, which spent in the range of $2 billion on 2010 measured media--didn't make the list because their spending was almost entirely in the U.S.

Media lists per country were by gross ad rates (unless otherwise noted). Ad Age DataCenter adjusted some markets' gross media expenditures to reflect a market's global media volume among all countries.

A Global 100 marketer had to have reported media spending in at least three of these major regions--U.S. and Canada; Latin America; Europe, Middle East, Africa; Asia and Pacific--to qualify as "global" regardless of headquarters.

Ad Age DataCenter uses average annual exchanges rates--on a historic basis--to convert local currencies to U.S. dollars. An increase or decrease in local media spending may be amplified by the conversion to U.S. dollars, depending on changes in the rates.

Advertising spending percent changes are based on more statistically accurate data than Ad Age's published spending figures, which are in millions and rounded to one decimal place.

Global 100 figures shown are estimates of media spending. Related content: See Ad Age's 100 Leading National Advertisers, which ranks marketers by total U.S. spending (media spending plus unmeasured spending estimates); see Marketer Trees 2011 database.

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-- This database was last updated December 5, 2011.
-- Global Marketing reports -- 1997 to present are here.

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