coordination resulted from the timing of new product launches. Unlike today, when many drugs are approved in the United States first and international launches follow, the reverse was true until the 1990s. US launches often followed overseas launches by one or two years. This phenomenon led to a great deal of agency work being developed in concert with international marketing departments to create campaigns that would serve the needs of all of the major overseas markets— but not those of the US division itself. US marketing teams would then develop their own strategies and campaigns for the domestic market only, without regard to international factors. Agencies working with both domestic and international marketing departments often found it necessary to set up separate units to deal with these very separate divisions within the same client. Intercom The Beginnings of Globalization The early 1960s saw the first change in this pattern. L.W. Frohlich, a transplanted German who had already developed a thriving agency to handle US promotional assignments, saw the opportunity to expand his business beyond our shores. But, initially, he wasn't planning to service his US clients in their forays into the rest of the world. Instead, he saw that non-US pharmaceutical companies were beginning to grow their businesses at rates comparable to US companies, becoming serious competitors in the now international pharmaceutical marketplace. Frohlich's vision was to create a group of international offices that would serve the needs of local clients in all of the key global pharmaceutical markets. In 1963 Frohlich established L.W. Frohlich/Intercon, the industry's first dedicated international agency operation, with an office in Germany. Perhaps this first
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