HAVAS

In 2008, our network continued to focus on delivering the promise of “Future First”: developing studies and products that would get us and our clients to the future first.

To do this we focused upon 3 pillars:
1) our future model and future disciplines
2) future regions
3) future talent   

 
1) Future model and future disciplines

This is an incredibly interesting time for our industry. Big agencies are losing major clients because they can’t deliver the big idea. Small creative shops are winning huge accounts but they don’t have the global reach to run them. Agencies specializing in digital often lack real understanding of brands, while their “traditional” counterparts don’t understand digital or, worse, force it to live in a silo. In our view, none of these models are ideal. Our unique model is based upon being both global and creative but, importantly, putting digital at the core of all of our businesses. This is Euro RSCG’s positioning and not only is it unique in the industry at this scale, but it also delivered another extremely successful year in 2008.

2) Focus on future regions

In 2008, we strengthened our leadership team in China. We promoted network veteran Olivier Pluquet to CEO of Asia- Pacific. Reporting to Olivier is Joe Wang, an expert in the Chinese advertising market with particular strength in client acquisition and network development, who holds the post of Chairman of North Asia. We also promoted network veteran Matthew Fanshawe to the newly-created post of CEO of South Asia. Finally, we named CC Tang Chief Creative Officer of China.

3) Focus on talent

We believe that ideas are a competitive point of difference and that the best ideas drive superior results and growth for our clients. The best ideas are delivered by the best people. That is why we set out to have a disproportionate share of the industry’s best talent. In North America we named Ron Bess and Ron Berger to the posts of Chief Operating Officer and Chairman of the region, respectively. We named Jeff Brooks and Andrew Benett to the post of co-CEOs of our New York office. In Europe, we promoted four of our biggest talents to the roles of Co-Managing Directors of Europe: Gilles Bérouard, Andreas Geyr, Juan Rocamora, and Christian de la Villehuchet. Naomi Troni, who was running new business for our London office was named Global New Business Director and relocated to our New York headquarters. And Zain Raj, one of the managing directors of our Chicago office, was named CEO of Euro RSCG Discovery and Global Retail Practice Leader for Euro RSCG. Michel Nakache and André Pinto returned to Euro RSCG Worldwide. Michel returns as Chairman, EMEA and APAC, Euro RSCG Life and André as Executive Vice President, Acquisitions and Global Brands for Euro RSCG Worldwide. At the global level, Matt Ryan left Arnold in New York to oversee Euro RSCG’s new business operations as Global Chief Marketing Officer. We continued our pursuit of star creative talent: Conway Williamson joined us as Chief Creative Officer of New York and CC Tang joined as Chief Creative Officer of Greater China. Fred Tong, formerly regional ECD at Hakuhodo China, returns to Euro as CCO, Euro RSCG Beijing. Robert Wohlgemuth and Florian Nussbaumer, award-winning creatives, were named ECDs, Euro RSCG Vienna. Dominique Van Doormaal joined as Creative Director of Euro RSCG Brussels. Hervé Plumet joined as Creative Director at Leg, and Glenn Gibbins joined as Creative Director at Euro RSCG London. To nurture the talent we have in our network, in 2008 we launched the Leadership Excellence Program. Along with professors from Wharton School of Business we created a curriculum designed to develop the skills of our next generation of leaders.

Significant events in 2008

We created new business models: the first global advertising agency to own a record label

In 2008, Euro RSCG Worldwide became the first global advertising agency to own a record label when it purchased a majority share of The:Hours, creating a new model of collaboration for advertising networks and record labels. We believe the future of our industry rests on engaging consumers rather than just reaching them, and a partnership of this nature will enable us to create incredibly engaging content around our clients’ brands. Today, brands want custom content and ideas. Through this partnership, we can help our clients to be recognized as tastemakers, and create an intimate and unique consumer experience with our direct access to artists, music supervisors, industry entrepreneurs, music publishers, and distribution networks such as Universal and iTunes.

We created new compensation models: clients pay only for results

In 2008, Euro RSCG Life launched HAVAS Drive, an offering focused exclusively on the development of virtual environments that simulate real life for healthcare professionals and patients seeking medical information online. Recently we announced an exclusive partnership to distribute our virtual products on Medscape from WebMD, the leading provider of health information for physicians and healthcare professionals. This unprecedented partnership provides multiple traffic drivers to propel engagement, allowing audiences to consume information on their terms.
This offer enables us to deliver innovation with built-in return-oninvestment; the clients only pay for results.

We found ways to create efficiencies in a global economy

Also this year, BETC Euro RSCG launched an extranet for Air France that connects its entire global network of key personnel to an online high-resolution, download-friendly library providing easy access to all of the client’s communication and brand assets, including communication guidelines, corporate and brand identity, TV, print, and digital ads and an easy-to-use style guide for use of brand assets. To accommodate the multifaceted, multilingual needs of personnel throughout the Air France network, the extranet also offers a customized, multilingual search engine with streaming preview and variable user rights that also provides for easy ordering of other brand products. Thanks to this extranet, global communications initiatives can be approved and thus rolled out in a much faster, more efficient way.

We maintained our thought leadership: heavy investment in proprietary research to guide the industry conversation

In the Spring of 2008, we unveiled the findings of a proprietary study, The Future of the Corporate Brand. The study showed the extent to which consumers have gained power over the past decade and the broader social role corporations are being asked to play.

Consumers now hold corporations almost as responsible as government for bringing about societal and environmental change. Our second study of the year, Brand Momentum 2.0, looked at which brands across the globe are best positioned for success and which marketing tactics and media choices made those brands the front runners. As an ad-hoc to this survey, we looked at the brands of the two US presidential candidates and, in a six-phase study, tracked the movement of those brands. During the week after the election, we collaborated with CNN commentators Alex Castellanos and Paul Begala to examine the strategies and tactics employed by the presidential candidates and how the most successful tactics can be implemented for brands.

he Future of Shopping study segmented consumers by behavior and price sensitivity and provided implications for retail clients on how best to position themselves for success, particularly in a down economy.

The Future of Luxury looked at which luxury brands had the best momentum and examined the whys and wherefores of once prestigious brands that have lost their luster.

Our study on Millennial Males dove deep into this demographic’s mind to understand the why behind their purchase decisions and identify how to reach this relatively untapped market with incredible spending power, even in these troubled times.

In Asia, we completed a study, entitled Post Olympic Marketing Disorder, which looked at what brands need to do after the Beijing Olympics. The report featured an analysis of the past four Olympic host countries and suggested that China’s marketers are in for a rough ride. With input from the Euro RSCG 2008 China Prosumer Study on people’s attitudes to the Olympic Games and sponsors, the Momentum study of the Olympic brand and expert marketing analysis, we were able to answer the question: What must marketers in China be doing to manage life after the Olympics?

Also in China, we have just completed the China Genome Project. As China reemerges on the global stage, it is its youth that is driving so much of the growth and change we are witnessing. In this report, we utilize input from the 2004 and 2008 China Prosumer Studies to explore the changes in attitude of “Strawberries” (‘New China’ - born after 1974) and “Nutshells” (‘Old China’ – the over-55s). Attitudes to relationships, lifestyle, wellness, social involvement and marketing are all discussed.
We have also continued to invest in and grow our global Knowledge Exchange program, which allows employees around the world to access our cutting-edge thinking.

New Business

Our business, like all other businesses worldwide, had a challenging time in 2008 as the effects of the credit crunch and global economic slowdown made clients more cautious, particularly in the hardest hit categories. This has made forecasting more difficult, but we have been able to continue to grow in 2008 and to increase our profit margin. Despite the slowdown, we managed to win an impressive list of new global and local clients such as Pernod Ricard, La Poste, Coca-Cola, Western Union…

What sets us apart

2008 continued to prove that our competitive set has expanded to include content providers of all sizes and disciplines – from the lone blogger to creative hot shops, digital agencies and major entertainment companies.

We view this as a very positive movement, as the value of great creative ideas has become more apparent to the world. In December 2008, Advertising Age’s Global Market Report ranked Euro RSCG #1 for new business for the third consecutive year.