HAVAS

Thanks to the remarkable talents and hard work of our teams, HAVAS Media was able to exceed all of its strategic, commercial and financial objectives in 2008. As a result, HAVAS Media ranked as the fastest growing network according to RECMA’s figures published in December 2008.

During the year, HAVAS Media’s operations have extended in three ways: growth, organizational consolidation and product development & insight.

Growth

2008 was yet again a year of double-digit growth for HAVAS Media which doubled its size in the UK with three important acquisitions early in the year. In January we acquired BLM, the second largest independent media agency in the UK, which was re-branded to Arena BLM and enabled the Arena network to initiate its expansion outside Iberia and Latin America. The Arena BLM team is known for its talents in digital and media. In March 2008, HAVAS Sports & Entertainment welcomed London-based Cake Ltd. into the network, bringing award-winning experience and creativity in highquality branded entertainment. Finally in May, the addition of AIS, one of the market’s leading creative and digital independents, to the HAVAS Digital network further strengthened our offering in this key market.

In October, Lord Watson of Richmond was appointed as UK Chairman of the newly set up HAVAS Media Advisory Board in the UK.

HAVAS Media now boasts the second (1) largest digital capacity in the UK and the recent RECMA report on billings ranked MEDIA PLANNING GROUP and Arena BLM with the highest growth rates of all agencies in the UK (46% and 80% respectively).

In Latin America, the network finalized an important acquisition in Brazil (Z+), which will reinforce our leadership position in that region. MPG also opened offices in Finland and Venezuela.
Organic growth was strong in all markets in 2008.

MPG operations in Germany experienced an exceptional new business stream, again delivering on our focus on client service. Large markets such as France and Spain have significantly increased their market leadership positions. According to a survey carried out by a Spanish consulting firm (2), Spain was able to win an impressive 45 per cent of the total volume of 2008 new business in the first six months of 2008. They did this without counting the largest win of the year in the market, Telefónica, which was won later in 2008.

Organic growth was fuelled by important account wins such as Sparkasse, Hugo Boss, Nationwide and BDF Nivea and by extending our relationship into new markets such as Austria, Switzerland, Poland and Indonesia with existing key clients including Reckitt Benckiser and Danone.

Organic growth was also helped by the continued development of offering integrated packages to clients through a range of specialist services providing the optimum solutions in each of their areas. These services range from media strategy and implementation of media solutions, interactive, direct, CRM and mobile marketing, sports communications, branded entertainment and celebrity management. During 2008, HAVAS Media continued to focus on several integration programs both within the group and with its sister network Euro RSCG.

HAVAS Digital, the digital arm of HAVAS Media:
• continued growing in 2008: +39%;
• reinforced its presence in the Asia-Pacific market: HAVAS Digital is now present in 33 countries (43 offices), it has more than 1,500 employees and won 32 major awards during 2008, among them Agency of the Year in the US, Mexico and Spain;
• actively worked on new product development and implementing strategies to generate value around industry trends such as the digitalization of all media, trading, addressable advertising, data, mobile and other integrated marketing services. For example, Mobext, the mobile marketing agency, opened operations in the US, UK, Brazil and Portugal.

(1) Source : Group estimation. (2) Source : Group Consultores.

Consolidation

The networks HAVAS Sports, HAVAS Entertainment and B6 were merged to create HAVAS Sports & Entertainment in response to current market trends, consumer demands and brand expectations. HAVAS Sports & Entertainment is an international, fully integrated network with world class capabilities operating in 14 countries. The new unified network delivers services to clients in unconventional advertising areas such as consultancy, negotiation, activation (Media Content, PR, Experiential and Digital Entertainment) and measurement, by associating brands with TV programs, music, cinema, cultural content, gaming, celebrities, CSR projects, and sports.

HAVAS Sports & Entertainment also reinforced its research expertise with the integration of a strong UK-based research team, now named HAVAS Sports Insight.

MPG USA launched a new business unit called Chrysalis which will concentrate on the place-based out-of-home segment, which includes billboards, digital screens, mobile, experiential and in-store.

Innovation

During 2008, the HAVAS Media Intelligence team continued to invest in market leading initiatives. The study “Consumer Perception of Climate Change” was launched in May. Its aim was to understand how consumers in nine leading markets perceive the problem of global warming, as a basis for advising brands and companies on how to communicate on the subject. HAVAS Media Intelligence also developed a new consumer modeling tool which uses a bespoke focus group and touch-point study research to predict the effects of a range of communication channels and touch-points on the consumer, including word of mouth and social networking sites. The tool was used during the run-up to the American presidential campaign and was able to dissect and analyze each candidate’s campaign and predict the popular vote with unrivalled accuracy three weeks prior to the election result.