Publicis Groupe is a French multinational advertising and public relations company. One of the oldest and largest marketing and communications companies in the world by revenue, it is headquartered in Paris. After 1945, the little-known Paris-based advertising agency grew rapidly, becoming the world's fourth-largest agency. It was a leader in promoting France's post- war economic boom, especially the expansion of the advertising industry; it was successful because of its close ties with top officials of the French government, its clever use of symbols to promote itself, and its ability to attract clients from widely diverse growing industries. It is one of the "Big Four" agency companies, alongside

WPP WPP may refer to: * WPP plc, a British multinational advertising and public relations company * WPP domain, a protein domain found in plants * Wavefront parallel processing, a video coding technique * White Patriot Party The White Patriot Part ...

, Interpublic and Omnicom. Publicis Groupe S.A. is headed by Arthur Sadoun, and its agencies provide digital and traditional advertising, media services and marketing services (SAMS) to national and multinational clients.

History

The company was founded by 20 year old

Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet (21 August 1906 – 11 April 1996) was a French entrepreneur and advertising magnate best known as the founder of Publicis Groupe. He is also credited with inventing radio advertising in France, helped create the first ...

in 1926. In 2011, Publicis was named the third-largest marketing group worldwide by revenue, surpassing Interpublic. By the end of 2010, the twin sectors of digital activities and high-growth emerging countries represented one-half of Publicis Groupe's total revenue. The group had operations in over 202 cities in 105 countries, including a strategic alliance with Dentsu. In July 2012 it was announced that Publicis Groupe and Omnicom Group would merge to form Publicis Omnicom Group, but by May 2014 it was announced that the deal had fallen through and the Publicis-Omnicom merger would not happen. In February 2015, Publicis acquired Sapient Corporation to form Publicis.Sapient as the world's largest digital network, which at the time included SapientNitro, Sapient Consulting, DigitasLBI and RazorfishGlobal. In September 2015 The Publicis Groupe acquired South African marketing, promotions and activations agency The Creative Counsel. The acquisition was reported as the largest agency buyout ever to happen in South Africa, with an unconfirmed valuation of between R1bn and R1.5bn. In December 2015, Publicis announced a new organisation into 4 main divisions: * Publicis Communications (gathering creative networks Leo Burnett Worldwide, Publicis Worldwide, Saatchi & Saatchi, Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), global design and technology consultancy Nurun, and creative production group Prodigious Brand Logistics and global PR agency MSLGROUP) under the leadership of Arthur Sadoun; * Publicis Media (gathering the media planning & buying capabilities of Starcom Mediavest Group and ZenithOptimedia) under the leadership of Steve King; * Publicis.Sapient (gathering technology & digital agencies

Razorfish Razorfish may refer to: Species Fish A common name used for three unrelated groups of fishes: * The genera ''Aeoliscus'', and ''Centriscus'', also known as shrimpfishes, in the family Centriscidae * The genus ''Xyrichtys'' of the family Labridae * ...

, DigitasLBi and Sapient Corporation) under the leadership of Alan Herrick; * Publicis Healthcare, already in existence, will remain under the leadership of Nick Colucci. In addition, Laura Desmond became Chief Revenue Officer, leading a team of 20 Chief Client Officers who would lead client teams across all Publicis Groupe entities. The new organisation was to be effective 1 January 2016. Since 2016, Publicis has co-organised, with Groupe Les Echos, the annual technology conference, Viva Technology. In 2017, CEO Maurice Lévy replaced Elisabeth Badinter (Bleustein-Blanchet's daughter) as chairman of the supervisory board and was succeeded as CEO by Arthur Sadoun. On 21 January 2019, Publicis announced the deal to sell two of their Latinamerican agencies, NovaDigitas and Pixeldigital to BancroftX to form a new marketing firm under the group umbrella BancroftX. On 14 April 2019, Publicis announced a $4.4 billion deal to acquire data marketing firm

Epsilon Epsilon (, ; uppercase , lowercase or lunate ; el, έψιλον) is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a mid front unrounded vowel or . In the system of Greek numerals it also has the value five. It was der ...

. On 4 February 2020, Publicis Groupe India announced the merging of existing agencies – Arc Worldwide, Solutions and Ecosys OOH, to create 'Publicis In-Motion'. In January 2014, Publicis acquired Law & Kenneth, an Indian advertising and digital agency. On 3 May 2022 French advertising holding company Publicis Groupe acquired Profitero, an e-commerce software company that provides analytics for brands, as marketer clients are increasingly seeking services in commerce.

Operations

The company owns several full-service advertising groups that undertake a range of media activities: mobile and interactive online communication, television, magazines & newspapers, cinema and radio, outdoor. The company's SAMS services include direct marketing/ customer relationship management services, sales promotion, healthcare communications, multicultural and ethnic communications, corporate and financial communications, human resource infrastructure, public relations, design services, interactive communications, events marketing and management, sports marketing, and production and ''pre-press services.'' Its media services include media planning, media buying, and media sales. Publicis Groupe's Vivaki developed a technological platform supported by Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! and

AOL AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017� ...

Platform A technologies that offers advertisers the possibility to target specifically defined audiences in a single campaign across multiple networks.

Controversies

Qorvis, a U.S. subsidiary of Publicis, has represented the country of Saudi Arabia since the September 11 attacks and has been accused of helping to whitewash its record on human rights. More recently, the writer Ken Klippenstein obtained leaked documents from Qorvis, which show the PR company pitched a private company on a four to five minute propaganda video, which hoped to improve the reputation of its Homestead, Florida shelter for "unaccompanied alien children."

Subsidiaries

As of October 2015, the main subsidiary companies of this group are: *Publicis Communications ** Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) **Glickman Shamir Samsonov ** Leo Burnett Worldwide ** Publicis New York **Publicis Worldwide **Publicis India **Publicis Beehive **Digitas ** Saatchi & Saatchi **Epsilon *Publicis Media ** Starcom **Zenith **Frubis **

Spark Foundry Spark Foundry, established in 2017, is an advertising agency that provides media selection services. It is based in Chicago, with offices also in Detroit, New York City, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco as well as other locations world w ...

**Digitas **GroupeConnect **Blue 449 **Performics **Publicis Global Delivery (PGD) **Publicis Sport & Entertainment ** Saatchi & Saatchi *Publicis Sapient **3SHARE ** SapientRazorfish ***Rosetta ** Publicis Pixelpark **

Publicis Sapient Publicis Sapient is an American digital consulting company, founded as Sapient in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1990 by Jerry Greenberg and J. Stuart Moore. On February 6, 2015, Sapient became a fully owned division of French advertising giant Pub ...

*** Vertiba **vivaki *Publicis Health *Specialized Agencies **Médias & Régies **PMCI (content and innovation) ** LionVault (Web3 Specialist Group) ** MSLGROUP **Prodigious Brand Logistics (including Translate Plus Limited) **

Publicis Healthcare Communications Group Publicis Healthcare Communications Group (PHCG) is a healthcare communications network which consists of around 12 agency brands in more than 60 offices located in 10 countries. Its agencies include brands Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, Digitas Health ...

** The Creative Counsel

PublicisLive

PublicisLive is a global event management and strategic communication firm founded in 1995 and has offices in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Geneva, Istanbul, Kigali and Paris. PublicisLive is part of Publicis Groupe.

References

External links

*
Official website: Nurun
{{CAC 40 companies 1926 establishments in France Advertising agencies of France Holding companies established in 1926 CAC 40 Companies listed on Euronext Paris Holding companies of France Public relations companies