Havas Group has restructured the way it operates to fully integrate the strategic thinking of its creative and media businesses.
The agency has pooled a multi-disciplinary team of strategists into a new 'strategy hub', which will be led by joint strategy directors, Havas Media Australia's head of strategy Imogen Hewitt and Havas Worldwide Australia's head of planning Phil Johnston.
The aim is to provide an operational structure that facilitates the Havas Village approach to integrated marketing. While both businesses already work together, this move should formalise the process internally and in how Havas goes to market.
Havas Media Australia chief executive Mike Wilson tells AdNews there is often talk about the need to bring creative and media closer, but little in the way of action.
“There's an undoubted desire in the client marketplace to have greater unification of creative and media thinking. There's a great deal of frustration from clients who feel their creative and media agencies are often at odds with each other,” Wilson says. “It's quite rare in the larger agencies to be able to deliver a seamless service across both sides.”
Wilson says the chasm between creative and media has widened in recent years due to growing complexity and the influence of technology and digital media on marketing.
However, he believes what clients want is better integration between creative and media to provide one seamless solution, rather than siloed management of different parts of the process.
Havas recently used this integrated marketing approach for a Coon cheese campaign, although Wilson says most of its client base are still siloed into creative or media.
“What's interesting is where clients are, for example, contracted to the creative agency and are now able to work across the broader village. This means even if we aren't the media agency of a particular client, the creative agency is able to draw onto those [media] skills and talents and apply them,” Wilson adds.
Havas says Hewitt and Johnston will be working across the Village’s stable of clients and have begun collaborating on several new business opportunities.
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