Jean-Yves Naouri is chief operating officer of the Paris-headquartered Publicis Groupe, third-largest advertising and marketing services company after WPP and Omnicom. In recent years, it has been the most aggressive among peers, wrapping up buys in digital, healthcare and public relations in India. This year alone, the company has had four acquisitions and has been equally aggressive on the advertising side, acquiring and then merging Delhi-based Capital Advertising with flagship agency Publicis Worldwide, restructuring operations at Saatchi & Saatchi India and now pushing BBH, following acquisition of the balance 49 per cent stake in the agency globally six months ago. Naouri talks to Viveat Susan Pinto on their ambitions in India. Edited excerpts:
What is the contribution from emerging markets for Publicis?
At the moment, fast-growing or emerging markets contribute about 25 per cent to overall revenue. This will grow, given the potential in these markets. If I club digital and fast-growing markets, the contribution to our top line is 50 per cent. Our intention is to take it up to 75 per cent in the next few years. We are confident we can achieve this. Our investments in the last few years have been in these two areas, primarily because we see growth coming out of these two segments. They are key drivers for us.
You have been consolidating recent digital buys under individual group agencies such as Indigo under Leo Burnett, Resultrix under media agency ZenithOptimedia and the current iStrat under flagship Publicis Worldwide. Do you have any plans to acquire digital assets for Saatchi & Saatchi, since they intend to have digital at the core of their offering?
In my conversation with the Saatchi & Saatchi team here, the message I've received is that they would like to grow their digital presence organically, by hiring good people. We will support the endeavour. In our culture, we allow individual agencies to assert themselves and have their own thinking. They do not feel stifled that way.
This autonomy is what helps you keep creative agencies such as Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) and Saatchi & Saatchi under the Publicis umbrella?
That is true. BBH stands tall in its ambition to drive creative work and so does Saatchi & Saatchi. We are happy to have both in our family. We just had the Publicis Groupe board meet in Mumbai, and it was great to see the Indian unit of BBH as part of it, besides our other group agencies. This was the first time that BBH was a part of the board meet since the acquisition of the 49 per cent stake six months ago.
Razorfish and Rosetta are two big Publicis agency brands in the digital space, which are not present in India. When do you intend to bring them here?
We are working on it. A few days ago, we announced we were expanding Rosetta's 10-year e-commerce partnership with IBM, to cover not just the US but other markets, too. As part of the initiative, we will use IBM’s Smarter Commerce technology platform and its software to develop four e-commerce hubs around the globe, located in the US, Western Europe, China and Latin America. Given that e-commerce is growing in India, this market will not be ignored. The idea is to enhance the ability of marketers to reach out and engage with shoppers online. Since the partnership is between Rosetta and IBM, the former will find its way here. The same goes for Razorfish, which we acquired from Microsoft in 2009. The online space has been growing in India. Brands like Razorfish will eventually come to India.
Given the investment in digital assets, whether organically or inorganically in India, will you at any stage look at converting the country into a hub, at least in the Asian region, for your digital activities?
That is something we are considering. But it is too early to indicate anything yet.
