The agency business is in the dumps. That’s what we hear from the press, right? Wrong!
According to The Wall Street Journal, Publicis Groupe posted organic revenue growth for the last quarter of 2010–a key metric in the advertising industry that strips out acquisitions, disposals and currency effects–of 12.5%, almost twice what analysts had expected for the quarter, and a level Publicis hasn’t seen since the dot-com boom in the 1990s.
Chief Executive Maurice Levy said Publicis’s 2010 results show that the group’s strategy to invest early into both digital and emerging markets has proven successful, but that the group now must increase its presence in emerging markets more rapidly.
“We can still do better in emerging markets,” Mr. Levy said at a briefing with reporters.
For the full year, net profit rose 30.5% to €526 million ($722.4 million), while Publicis posted revenue of €5.42 billion, up 20% from 2009.