Publicis Groupe has finally sealed its $3.7bn takeover of technology company Sapient (which also includes the Sapient Nitro agency) after finally persuading the US authorities that French ownership of the company – which works on US defence business – poses ...
Read More »Who is going to make the big deals and produce the big winners in 2015?
What’s going to happen in adland in 2015? 1/ The first is that time (and tide) wait for no man and, in February WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorrell will be 70 while arch enemy Maurice Levy of Publicis Groupe will ...
Read More »2014 – the year global adland’s dogs didn’t bark
‘The Curious Incident Of the Dog In the Night-Time’ is a highly successful novel and a play by Mark Haddon, dealing, among other things, with Asperger’s Syndrome and autism. But the expression comes from a Sherlock Holmes story, ‘Silver Blaze,’ ...
Read More »Maurice Levy looks back on his ‘annus horribilis”
It’s been, in his own words, an “annus horribilis” for Maurice Levy and Publicis Groupe in 2014 – the collapse of the merger with Omnicom, poor trading and a sceptical market reaction to his latest wheeze, paying $3.7bn for digital ...
Read More »Who’d want to be Cadillac’s creative agency?
General Motors wants to make Cadillac a big global luxury car brand so it’s dumping Lowe Campbell-Ewald (and its 500 employees in Detroit) and moving to Publicis Worldwide. Because Publicis is good at luxury brands it seems, although packaging Cadillac ...
Read More »Is India the key to Publicis’ $3.7bn Sapient deal?
Well Ad Age thinks it is, pointing out that 8500 of Sapient’s 13000 employees work in India, home of cheap labour (for the most part) and lots of technology skills (office, left). But, as the mag also acknowledges, much of ...
Read More »Publicis needs to work hard to get $3.7bn of value out of Sapient and Sapient Nitro
Foreign interlopers often receive a raw deal in the good old US of A, think of all the British agencies that came unstuck over there (most notably Saatchi & Saatchi when it bought Bates) as the natives extract stupendously high ...
Read More »Michael Lee: is the ad agency dead – or changing dramatically into a new-style ally for clients?
The demise of the ad agency appears all set. A tombstone prepared. The obituaries written. The lilies artfully arranged. Which is a perfect time for the AdForum 2014 Summit. The “Summit” is where a gathering, gaggle, school or pack (choose ...
Read More »Levy gets the deal he’s been looking for with $3.7bn buy of Sapient Nitro owner
Publicis Groupe boss Maurice Levy (left) has finally pulled of the transformational deal he’s been looking for with a successful $3.7bn bid for tech-cum-agency company Sapient. Sapient Corp, the owner of digital ad agency Sapient Nitro, was valued on Wall ...
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