Havas Group held its annual press update from the Havas Café in Cannes during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
Yannick Bolloré, Chairman & CEO of Havas Group and Chairman of Vivendi, announced the Group’s new strategic direction and a new common mission: make a meaningful difference to brands, businesses, and people.
Based on its proprietary study which analyses the shift in consumers’ expectations across the world, Havas has designed a new roadmap to help brands address the fast-growing demand for meaningful purpose and content. The Group has identified four key competitive advantages to ensure the success of this new positioning and maintain its position as the most integrated group in the industry:
- A new common business methodology designed to make brands meaningful, that is being implemented across Havas’ Creative, Media, and Health businesses.
- The Group’s talent strategy will focus on continuing to evolve talent programmes and initiatives that enable Havas to be the most meaningful place to work.
- Havas’ integrated Village model that will continue to provide clients with seamless and agile business solutions.
- The power of Vivendi, that gives Havas an unmatched access to meaningful content and will continue to be a driving force of the Group. To support this ambition, Yannick Bolloré announced the further development of the Annex, Havas-Vivendi’s shared fast-growing network designed to help brands tap into digital and millennial culture. This expansion is made through the acquisition of Battery and the launch of Annex Bastille, where cultural influencers from Havas and from the broader Vivendi environment will bring their expertise to brands.
As part of this new strategic plan, Yannick Bolloré also underlined the need for Havas to set the example by being a meaningful group itself, and announced a series of new commitments, starting with gender equality, workplace harassment training and environmental responsibility.
Yannick Bolloré, Chairman & CEO Havas Group and Chairman Vivendi, commented: “Our Together strategy transformed our Group and enabled us to create more than 60 Villages all over the world, making us the most integrated group in our industry. Togetherness will remain at the heart of everything we do but it is now the right time for us to set ourselves a new ambition: make a meaningful difference to brands, businesses and people. The primary focus of everyone at Havas is to create meaningful brands because meaningful brands are better for business and for the world we live in”.
ACQUISITION OF BATTERY
Havas Group has acquired Battery, a highly-acclaimed, culture-driven creative agency based in Los Angeles with a specialized focus on gaming, television, movies and streaming TV services. Battery will become part of the Annex and be renamed Battery Annex. The acquisition gives the Annex a larger presence in the Los Angeles creative community and enhances its capabilities around gaming and streaming entertainment. Battery Annex brings an unparalleled understanding of Hollywood marketing to both Havas and Vivendi, providing more opportunity to create and deliver cutting-edge content and meaningful brand experiences as consultants of culture.
* Main photo from Havas Group via Facebook
About Havas Group
Havas is one of the world’s largest global communications groups. Founded in 1835 in Paris, the Group employs 20,000 people in more than 100 countries and operates through its three business units covering all communication activities. Havas Group integrated Vivendi in December 2017. Havas Group’s mission is to make a meaningful difference to brands, to businesses and to people. To better anticipate client needs, Havas has adopted a fully integrated model through its 60 Havas Villages around the world. In these Villages, creative, media and healthcare & wellness teams work together, ensuring agility and a seamless experience for clients. Further information about Havas Group is available on the company’s website: havasgroup.com
#MeaningfulDifference
