No sooner had we noted Publicis Groupe’s plan to buy press agency Relaxnews than even more hyperactive French rival Havas pings in with news of a deal to form a global content partnership with NewsCred, which claims to be the world’s leading content marketing platform.
One wonders if the two events are, by any chance, related?
Havas says the deal gives its clients access to more than 5000 leading publishers worldwide including Associated Press, Al Jazeera, BBC, Billboard, Bloomberg, CNN, Daily Telegraph, The Economist, EPA, Evening Standard, Forbes, The Guardian, Gawker, The Independent, Nielsen, New York Magazine, Reuters and Shutterstock.
This follows the signing of an exclusive sharing deal between Havas and music giant Universal at the Consumer Electronics Show last month.
Havas social network Socialyse will integrate NewsCred’s software into its Havas Social Newsrooms (currently in London, NYC and Paris with more opening this year). This will be used for social media monitoring, content performance tracking and audience engagement metrics, among other things. Havas and NewsCred have been working on the integration for the past nine months.
NewsCred CEO and co-founder Shafqat Islam (above) says: “Every brand has a story to tell. We firmly believe that the brands that will win in the future are the brands that think of content as a strategic asset across their organization. We’re excited to partner with such a major media network like Havas Media Group to help our joint customers reach key audiences with compelling, valuable content.”
Havas Media Group global managing director Dominique Delport says: “2015 is the year of content for Havas. This has been an incredible nine months of working together and we are so pleased to formally add the team at NewsCred to our future. This New York start-up (NewsCred), its inspiring CEO and their 210 employees have created a simple way to understand how we can use content to build meaningful relationships with people.”
interestingly, Havas began life as a news agency way back in 1835. Back to the future indeed.
