In March 2002, Publicis Groupe announced its acquisition of the US Group Bcom3, which controlled Leo Burnett, D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles and Starcom MediaVest Group, and held a 49% interest in Bartle Bogle Hegarty. At the same time, Publicis Groupe established a strategic partnership with Dentsu, the leading communications Group in the Japanese market and a founding shareholder of Bcom3. The acquisition established Publicis Groupe in the top tier of the advertising and communications industry, making it the fourth largest advertising group worldwide, with operations in more than 100 countries and five continents.
From 2002 to 2006, Publicis Groupe successfully integrated Bcom3, following Saatchi & Saatchi, and brought together a large number of entities. At the same time, it made a number of acquisitions to create a coherent range of services that would address clients’ needs and expectations, particularly offering different types of marketing services and access to the principal emerging markets.
The period between 2006-2013 marked the transformation of Publicis Groupe for the digital world. This was reflected by a profound change in its structure and operating methods to better adapt to the new demands of this new era. The Groupe added digital services to its well-known holistic offer while strengthening its position in fast-growing economies, both of which would be major strategic bets in the years to come. Amid fast growth in the digital arena, the most visible sign of the Groupe’s transformation was undoubtedly the launch of VivaKi, a new initiative aimed at optimizing the performance of advertiser investments. In January 2007, Publicis Groupe completed the acquisition of Digitas Inc., the US leader and the world’s largest interactive and digital communications agency. The acquisition of Razorfish – the number two interactive agency in the world after Digitas – from Microsoft in October 2009, brought new strengths to the Groupe’s digital activities, notably in e-commerce, interactive marketing, search engines, strategy and planning, social network marketing and the resolution of technological architecture and integration issues.
In 2009, Publicis Groupe became the world’s third-largest communications firm, overtaking its competitor Interpublic Group. This position has been considerably strengthened since then.
During 2012 and 2013, the Groupe made a number of targeted acquisitions worldwide, particularly in the digital sector, in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, the United States, Russia, Brazil, China, Singapore, India, Israel and, for the first time, in Palestine.
On July 27, 2013, Publicis Groupe and Omnicom Group Inc. signed an agreement for a merger of equals. In May 2014, Publicis Groupe chose not to pursue the merger with Omnicom Group Inc.
The most important transaction of 2014 was the acquisition of Sapient. In a world of growing convergence, the combination of Sapient with Publicis Groupe’s know-how created an unparalleled expertise in marketing and commerce across all distribution channels and consulting services based on outstanding technological prowess.
Publicis Sapient became part of the new organizational structure announced in 2015, whose implementation was completed at the end of the first half of 2016. This structure abandoned the holding company model in order to develop an operational architecture based on the Connecting Company concept. Highly modular in structure, Publicis Groupe’s Connecting Company model is unlike any other platform in the sector and offers clients plug & play access to its leading services:
Thus, Publicis connects all its expertise in an integrated way thanks to the “Power of One” to provide winning solutions to its clients.
In 2016, on its 90th anniversary, Publicis Groupe launched a project named Publicis90. This idea was to provide 90 projects or start-ups with financial aid and the support of the Groupe’s digital experts. These projects were selected from 3,500 applications submitted from 130 countries.
At the beginning of 2017, the Publicis Groupe Supervisory Board appointed Arthur Sadoun as Maurice Lévy’s successor as Chairman of the Management Board. Maurice Lévy became Chairman of the Supervisory Board.
2017 was marked by two themes: pursuing integration and accelerating in the execution of the strategy initiated by Maurice Lévy. The Groupe had the ambition of becoming the leader in the convergence of marketing and operational transformations, through the alchemy of creativity and technology.
