During the 1990s design, too, was swept up by globalization as it took rapid hold on the Asia-Europe-America axis. Asian corporations from Japan and Taiwan recognized very early on the importance of design for their intensive marketing efforts. The degree of the sociocultural differences between users means that assessments conducted from afar cannot produce adequate conclusions for product policy and design. Consequently, corporations and institutions opened contact offices in Europe, which functioned as probes in their respective markets. This is verified by various examples where agencies in Europe and the United States are commissioned by Asian corporations to develop products that are then marketed in those regions. Some major design agencies such as Design Continuum, frogdesign, and IDEO opened their own branches in Asia in order to cooperate more directly with clients there by having staff on the spot. Global networking allowed the design and development projects themselves to be handled in the European and American offices. European corporations, too, particularly in the electronics and automotive industries, opened offices abroad (especially in California) in order to follow current lifestyle trends more closely and to integrate the results of foreign studies more quickly into product development at home. The Audi TT was born on the drawing boards of a Californian agency and enjoyed equally spectacular success in America and Europe.