Claire Beale On Advertising: A new creature stalks the giants of adland

This week I have a story for you that could change the international advertising landscape. But first, let's wallow in a little bit of advertising nostalgia.

We'll start with Heineken. Remember the days when it "Refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach"? Every ad was precious. My favourite is the 80s Sloane, all Alice band and pearls, having elocution lessons at The School of Street Credibility. A swig of Heineken finally does it, and her "Water in Majorca" sounds as Cockney as a jellied eel.

Or Hamlet. Hapless Rab C Nesbitt star Gregor Fisher trying to maintain his comb-over and his dignity for a photo-booth picture and failing deliciously. No matter, because "Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet".

Or Hovis' Boy on a Bike peddling into the sepia sunrise to Dvorak's New World Symphony. "As good for you today as it's always been".

And how about the Fiat Strada "Handbuilt by robots" ad? Ironically the ad was nearly never made. When the creative crew turned up at the factory in Turin to shoot the commercial, the gates were locked and picketed as the workers went on strike over the use of robots to do their jobs.

These commercial moments in our collective culture were all created by one agency. The iconic Collett Dickenson Pearce, launched into a sleepy UK advertising market on April Fool's Day in 1960. It went on to nurture a generation of advertising talent that built modern British advertising: Sir Frank Lowe, Alan Parker, Charles Saatchi, David Puttnam, Sir John Hegarty.

The agency won a reputation for bold, witty, intelligent advertising, for slogans that are remembered fondly (and recited perfectly), and for long-running campaigns that rarely missed the mark. Imagine the TV show Mad Men set in London's swinging sixties and seventies, and you have CDP. Glamour hung heavy in the agency's smoke filled offices and its people had an arrogance borne of unfailing confidence in being the best. When a young Frank Lowe went for a job interview there in the 60s he asked for a salary of £5,000. They gave him £5,500 and a Lotus Elan.

CDP's ads touched consumers' lives in ways that most agencies can only dream of today. It's no exaggeration to say CDP shaped advertising, it shaped popular culture and its work probably helped shaped you and me. Now CDP is breathing its last. From the New Year, one of the most famous names in British advertising will disappear. To be replaced by a Japanese one.

Dentsu is also an advertising phenomenon. The communications giant with a mission to "generate happiness, vitality and peace among all our stakeholders", has owned CDP for years. Now, it's going to put the Dentsu name above the door and kill off the iconic CDP brand forever.

Few tears will be shed. CDP today is a shadow its former self. Dentsu, on the other hand, could be the new force in global advertising. More than 90 per cent of its business has been confined to Japan. But in Japan – the world's second-biggest advertising market – it's a colossus. The aim now is to leverage that strength on the global stage.

But if it's to take on adland giants like Omnicom, WPP and Publicis, Dentsu will need to do more than change the name of its UK outpost.

The Dentsu approach is a long way from the dazzling, maverick agency brands that are leading Western advertising; so Dentsu will have to learn to move beyond its roots.

A focus on outstanding creativity, a 21st-century version of what made CDP so important, would be a good place to start.