French advertising giant Publicis says clients are “uncertain, confused, and worried about their brands,” and says its acquisition of Sapient will effectively double its advantage over the competition.
Issuing a strategic update to investors and analysts overnight, it said it was aiming to become a much more digitally focused group, seeking to tap into the opportunities of the “Empowered Age” and “Converged Era”, without running into the problems associated with it.
“We are experiencing radical changes in consumer behaviour and truly overturned business models under the impulse of digital,” Publicis CEO Maurice Levy said.
“The speed of innovation and the leakage of digital in every economic sector are driving us to reposition Publicis Groupe in order to be able to bring our clients, a radically new model, of delivering all of the services they need in order to face this inescapable transformation of business models, in ways they can stay relevant in the minds of consumers and in their own industries.”
The group said brands were worried about the effect of empowered consumers and how their brand messages could be disrupted, with two-way communication now enabled through mobile, social, and other platforms.
Speaking about its 2018 targets, the group said that its proposed acquisition would effectively double its advantage over the competition.
Without the acquisition, it said, its growth rate would have been 100 basis points over the industry average, but with the acqusition that will double to 200bps.
Publicis Groupe acquired Sapient in a US$3.7 billion ($A4.4 billion) move to bolster its digital capability back in November.
It said at the time the acquisition would make the group the world's “leading global communication, marketing, omni-channel commerce and technology group” with combined revenue in excess of €8 billion ($A11.8 billion) and combined EBITDA of approximately €1.3 billion.
For more stories:
Publicis nabs strategy boss from Marcel
Sapient becomes the jewel in the Publicis crown
Investigation into Publicis-Sapient deal launched
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