Publicis Groupe chief Maurice Levy predicts more agency consolidation on the horizon
Today’s technology-orientated world is likely to trigger the need for future agency consolidation, according to Publicis Groupe’s chairman and CEO Maurice Levy.
Speaking on an international conference call this morning following the publication of the group’s financial results, Levy said there appeared to be a general acceptance on behalf of its clients and across most business leaders, that consolidation is becoming the norm.
He said that its own acquisitions, across China, India and the US, had centred on technology-orientated businesses, which it would not have deemed it important to acquire a few years prior.
The result is that it has built an “extremely strong” e-commerce capability, which has led to it competing more with the likes of Accenture and CapGemini, adding that there is a “blurring of borders”.
He referenced the recent “project win” in which Publicis’s DigitasLbi competed against the likes of Deloitte and Accenture to win the Nissan-Renault contractas an example.
“With this project we were faced with Deloitte and Accenture, and we won. These are two companies that could have very well carried out this project, although perhaps not as well as us. But we won it because we can bring something of the knowledge of consumers to the brand, which makes us a very good partner for the brand,” he said.
“In this moving environment when technology is taking over it makes sense for us to be consolidated further. As far as the industry is concerned, at the World Economic Forum in Davos meeting I attended, where 40 CEOs from media, advertising, entertainment, and information industries came together, we came to the general consensus that there would be further consolidation in future years.
“As for whether we will be part of this – we feel we have already done our share. Now our interest is to go deeper into a number of sectors, which is what we are doing,” he said.
Meanwhile Levy described the Publicis-Omnicom merger as a “true merger of equals”, stressing that neither group would dominate the other. He said that despite some criticism the merger had received in the press that its clients were supportive of it.
He said that there have been no “major problems” so far in the process, but that a merger of this size is extremely time-consuming and “not a walk in the park”.
As such he said they are bracing themselves for the possibility that it may extend beyond its summer deadline, into the following quarter. However, that is not confirmed, and it is currently awaiting the approval of the Chinese authorities on the merger.