Asatsu-DK

Asatsu-DK Inc.
株式会社アサツー ディ・ケイ
Kabushiki gaisha
Traded as TYO: 9747
Industry Advertising agency
Founded March 19, 1956
Headquarters Tsukiji, Chūō, Tokyo, Japan
Key people
 Masao Inagaki (Chairman)
Kōichirō Naganuma (President and CEO)[1]
Number of employees
 1,925 (Dec 2011)
Website Official website
Headquarters of Asatsu-DK in Tsukiji

Asatsu-DK Inc. (株式会社アサツー ディ・ケイ Kabushiki-gaisha Asatsū Di Kei), often abbreviated simply as ADK or sometime called Anime Densetsu no Kaitakusha (アニメ伝説の開拓者 A Pioneer of the Animation Legends), is a Japanese advertising agency. Headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, the firm is Japan's third largest advertising agency, after Dentsu and Hakuhodo.[1] The agency has 38 offices in over 15 countries. One of the offices, Asatsu-DK Europe, was established in 1993 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The WPP Group holds a 20% share in Asatsu-DK.[1]

History

Asatsu Inc. was established in 1956 by current chairman Masao Inagaki. On August 1998, it entered into a professional tie-up with the WPP Group. It soon merged with fellow advertising agency Dai-ichi Kikaku Co., Ltd. (which was established in 1951) to form Asatsu-DK (where the DK stands for Dai-ichi Kikaku) on January 1, 1999.

Subsidiaries and interests

It owns a variety of interests and companies, including the production studio NAS, the animation studio Eiken, the publishing house Nihon Bungeisha Publishing, the film and print processing enterprise Taiyo Seihan, the production studios Sun Artist Studio, Supervision Inc., television commercial production house Prime Pictures, and creative services company Tokyo Ad Party.[1]

Asatsu-DK is also involved in producing and providing its services to numerous anime series, through itself as well as its numerous subsidiaries, including recent installments of Sunrise's famous Gundam series, such as the latest series Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Turn A Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam Seed and Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny, as well as several other anime.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "Asatsu-DK Inc. Company Profile - Yahoo! Finance". Yahoo! Finance. Retrieved 2007-10-15.

External links