SURESNES AND PARIS, FRANCE: Holding companies Havas and Publicis Groups released positive 2006 numbers with both seeing revenue growth.
After a sluggish Q3, Publicis regrouped to announce a 6.3% jump in organic growth for Q4 and nearly $5.7 billion in revenues for 2006. Publicis was able to beat their expectations on the strength of that quarter, showing an overall organic growth for 2006 of 5.6%.
Publicis saw growth across all regions, the largest jump, 16.3%, in Africa and the Mideast. In North America, healthcare communication aided growth.
Publicis announced it was acquiring Digitas Communications in December 2006, and launched Denuo, a discipline-agnostic digital marketing firm. MS&L became Heineken's AOR and GM's diversity AOR.
Havas last week also reported 2006 full-year revenue of $1.906 billion, citing "real growth in annual revenue" for the first time in five years. However, Havas' 2005 annual revenue was $1.9 billion, a difference of only 0.6%.
Healthcare and corporate communications performed well globally, especially in France and the UK. North America saw "a return to growth in Q4," Havas said in a statement, and "healthcare and corporate communications again proved extremely dynamic," particularly via efforts by Euro RSCG.
A key win for the agency came in November, when Sanofi-Aventis chose Euro RSCG C&O to handle its global corporate communications. The pharma giant also retained Euro RSCG Life to oversee all communications for thrombosis treatment Lovenox/Clezane, diabetes treatments Lantus and Apidra, and all communications for new brands in those two therapeutic domains. The moves positioned Sanofi as one of Havas' top three global PR clients.