Räumlicher Strukturwandel der (west-)deutschen Werbewirtschaft: Arbeitsmärkte als lokale Anker der Kreativökonomie?

Joachim Thiel

doi:10.1515/zfw.2007.0003

The spatial restructuring of the (West)German advertising industry. Labour markets as local anchors of the creative economy? The spatial restructuring of the German advertising industry is examined from the beginning 1980s onwards focusing on the shifting centre of gravity of the national industry from the post-war centres Frankfurt am Main and Düsseldorf to Hamburg. From this particular case this paper attempts to derive general conclusions for the spatial organization of the creative economy. The rise of Hamburg was based, on the one hand, on a general change of the global industry towards a more creative and entertaining advertising style. On the other hand, this process was transferred to the national level by a small group of pioneer agencies based in Hamburg, managing to access artistic segments of the labour markets and integrating them into a business service activity. The final result was the emergence of a dynamic and turbulent local labour market in Hamburg which turned into a pole of attraction and incubation for advertising firms. These findings underpin the general argument that the spatial “fixation” of the creativity and knowledge based economy is mediated primarily through the labour markets of professionals. However this does not imply that the organization of the economy merely follows the desires of highly qualified workers. The mediation rather occurs through the multiple uncertainties inherent to knowledge intensive labour markets which - as the final idea - can be most appropriately processed in a metropolitan context.

Räumlicher Strukturwandel der (west-)deutschen Werbewirtschaft

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