James Wright.
The AdNews end of year Perspectives, looking back at 2024 and forward to next year.
James Wright is Group CEO at HAVAS Creative Network ANZ, Global CEO at HAVAS Red and Global Chair HAVAS PR Network
2024 has been, as one colleague put it “a year of slow YESs and slow NOs’. There has been a lot of uphill battling with a challenging economy, leading to changing client priorities and budgets. Clients have been just as frustrated as we have been and during these periods it’s more important than ever we are seen and felt as strategic partners to them.
Spending time on calls with my global executive leadership, it’s comforting to learn that around the world we are all experiencing some version of this. Unlike the challenges of the pandemic, we have been here before, we know how to manage our agencies through tricky economic times. And that’s what we have done.
The first half of 2024 was a particular slog. So, we developed new offerings, innovated ideas and backed ourselves to win the opportunities that would make the biggest difference for us in the second half and into 2025, whilst sensibly managing costs.
Around May and June time we started to see pitches restart (some shelved from 2023!), new ones appear and importantly clients re-open the purse strings. After a strong run of successful pitches through the Winter months, we managed to set ourselves up well for the rest of this year and next.
Despite these ups and downs, we’ve kept a laser focus on the most important things: backing our culture of leading with empathy; supporting our amazingly talented teams and the award-winning work they’re producing; and keeping both eyes firmly fixed on overall growth as a long game.
What has become abundantly clear in 2024 is the marketing and communications function is gaining an even more prominent seat at the table. With this many CMOs are now seeking further consolidation from their marketing partners, served up as true end to end, full funnel services. The from-to expectation on CMOs is therefore building business vs solely brand building. This expectation is harder to meet if you’re juggling a roster of agencies that you can’t even count on two hands.
In 2024 clients have been coming to us across all sectors for marketing excellence, and modern innovation. They are looking to us to harness the power of emerging technologies, data, and AI – and deliver an omnichannel, holistic offering that works to drive sustainable growth for their businesses and brands.
When we look ahead to 2025 and beyond we are going to experience a remarkable evolution powered by exciting advances in AI and consumer demand for hyper personalisation. Our industry stands at the forefront of a dynamic new era of creative convergence.
We see these changes not as challenges, but as incredible opportunities for us to further innovate, grow and deliver even greater value to our clients. For example, I believe AI will make our industry better, but we always need to be better than AI by doubling down on what sets us as humans apart, which is leading with emotional intelligence and creativity. If we get the balance right between technology and human creativity we will continue to be an indispensable partner to clients.
At Havas, we’re at an exciting juncture in our 189-year journey, with our expected listing on the Euronext at the end of 2024. This will mean even more opportunities and potential for us in 2025 to invest, develop and drive forward. Over a decade ago, we launched our Havas Together strategy, a bold industry-first move that led to the success of our Havas Villages and agency teams worldwide. The strategy has enabled better integration, superior work and stronger partnerships with our global clients.
As we continue to evolve, we are now pushing this strategy further through our creative Converged model that brings all our people, technology, platforms, data, research and creative thinking together. Each come from slightly different places but meet powerfully at a single point to solve a client’s business problem.
To support this we are investing heavily in data, technology and AI, and we’re earmarking an average AUD 165 million a year globally for the next four years to continue building on our market leading capabilities.
As our Global CEO and Chairman, Yannick Bolloré said earlier this year “the future belongs to those who embrace change with boldness and ingenuity.” We are going to live by these words going into 2025 and beyond.
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