Dentsu extends European presence with Publicis Groupe collaboration

by Jennifer Whitehead, Brand Republic 16-Feb-06, 08:45

LONDON - Dentsu, the Japanese advertising giant, has strengthened its presence in Europe by collaborating with two Publicis Groupe agencies in France and Germany.

In a joint statement, Publicis and Dentsu said that the aim of the joint agreement is to provide advertising services to Japanese clients in each market.

The two Publicis subsidiaries are Paname in France and BMZ+more in Germany. Publicis said that the business tie-up would see a collaboration at management level, but no exchange of equity.

Paname is a Paris-based agency with 55 people, and is part of the Publicis Regions network. BMZ is based in Dusseldorf and has been part of Publicis since 1989. It has 100 staff.

At a joint conference in Tokyo, Maurice Levy, chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe, told senior management that he would aggressively promote "cooperation between Publicis Groupe and Dentsu encompassing a broad array of regions, clients and services".

The French ad group already works with Dentsu in a number of ventures, including the Swiss agency iSe, which is running a hospitality programme during the World Cup in Germany later this year. Dentsu is also a shareholder in Publicis, and the collaboration between the two companies dates back to Publicis' acquisition of ad holding company Bcom3 in 2003, which had a minority stake in the agency group.

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