Levy titular de Publicis hace predicciones para el 2009

Maurice Levy el titular del grupo Publicis nos dice que  hay que proteger margenes y estar cerca de los clientes.Al disminuir  los negocios muchas agencias van a tender a reducir precios, muchos van a pelear por el mismo proyecto, al mismo tiempo los margenes van a caer.  Es importante no erosionar la rentabilidad de la agencia ya que ese paso nos lleva a no poder reinvertir en recursos para el futuro cuando los negocios mejoren y nos veamos necesitados de mayor working capital.

Publicis promotes silver lining in crisis

By Ben Hall in Paris

Published: January 6 2009 02:00 | Last updated: January 6 2009 02:00

While other company bosses are mired in gloom, Maurice Lévy appears to relish the prospect of a sharp downturn engulfing his industry.

“It’s the type of situation that excites my neurons,” said the chief executive of Publicis, the world’s fourth-largest advertising group, in an interview with the Financial Times.

“Crisis situations are those that allow one to do better things afterwards, to break with routine,” he said, while insisting he did not actually like recessions. “Nothing is more boring than business as usual.”

Mr Lévy insisted that Publicis, which he has led for 10 years, would fare better than its competitors and emerge stronger from this recession, as it had done in each previous crisis during his four decades at the French group.

The veteran advertising executive took a swipe at long-standing rival Sir Martin Sorrell of UK-based WPP who recommended in November that Publicis take over Interpublic, the second-largest US owner of advertising agencies.

Such a deal was the “fantasy of a little Englishman trying to stir things up”, Mr Lévy said. “This man is more interested in the affairs of other businesses than in managing his own.”

However, Mr Lévy admitted for the first time that Publicis would see a decline in sales in 2009 as growth in its digital and emerging market businesses failed to compensate fully for a drop in its traditional activities.

Its internet advertising business would grow by “two digits” and its Russian, Chinese and other emerging market operations would continue to expand in 2009, albeit more slowly than 2008. But this would make up only a “large part” of a shrinkage in the company’s mature business.

“My objective is to compensate for nearly all of what the market is going to lose,” he said. “Realistically speaking, if we make up for a large part of what the market is going to lose, I will have done a good job. I will have consolidated the group.”

ZenithOptimedia, a unit of Publicis, last month predicted worldwide advertising spending would shrink by 0.2 per cent in 2009 – the first contraction for eight years – on the back of a 6.2 per cent drop in the US market.

But Mr Lévy predicted that it would be the “fat middle” echelon of advertising agencies that would suffer during a recession, whereas large groups offering a full range of services could cover their customers’ needs while small agencies would be more nimble.

Mr Lévy said the slowdown would produce takeover opportunities – he had received at least one a day on average since September – and Publicis had a strong cash position, giving it an advantage overrivals. But he would only make “modest” acquisitions in digital advertising or emerging markets.

Mr Lévy said his priority in 2009 was to stay close to clients and gain market share while protecting his company’s margins.

A recession made it easier to cut costs, he said, revealing that Publicis was looking at grouping back-office functions of businesses in the US, Canada and Mexico in one centre, and doing the same for France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg in another.

There would also be growth opportunities. Mr Lévy said there would be a boom in “crisis communications” with companies needing to explain restructurings.

Meanwhile, banks had a “duty” to “re-establish a relationship of trust” with their clients and the public.

Among large advertising groups, Publicis has led the foray into internet advertising services and a year ago formed a partnership with Google to develop advertising techniques and analytical tools.

It is still unclear what the partnership brings Publicis, and analysts fear internet companies could suck the talent, expertise and clients from traditional advertising groups. But Mr Lévy dismissed this fear. “Most of their business will come at the media’s expense. For the [old] media, this new media is a new and dangerous competitor.

“The model by which they work is scalability. They spend a lot of money developing a product, and it is used by an enormous quantity of people, such as search engines or Google Earth. They spend a lot of money, people use it, they can get advertising and then it becomes profitable. In our case, we are precisely the opposite of scalable. When we sell an idea to one client we can’t sell it to a second. We have to find another idea.”

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009