Havas Media says 2022 was focused on rethinking its client portfolio, capabilities and talent force to future-proof the business pipeline and sustain growth.

The agency shifted its focus to more progressive and agile brands providing existing clients with training, webinars, immersive sessions and thought leadership. 

It also ramped up capabilities with some APAC investments, opening a virtual village and launching Havas Business, a new B2B offering. Additionally, Havas introduced new programs to keep its people happy and develop them professionally.

Category 2022 2021 Business B   B- Innovation B- C DEI and sustainability C+ C+ Creativity and effectiveness C C Management B- C *2021 scores adjusted to new numeric scale. Read about the grading methodology

Business (B)

Havas Media saw an increase in revenue in 2022 compared to 2021 and a significant increase in profit over the same period.

The agency is keen to highlight it won the integrated marketing duties for leading electronics brand Harman International, along with its portfolio of brands, including JBL, Harman Kardon, and Harman's B2B products. 

Havas attributes the win to its "proven integrated Village approach", which tapped its social media arm Socialyse and Havas CX to deliver a globally aligned strategy across markets and disciplines for Harman. But importantly, it says the win fits with its strategy of taking on new business that allows it to drive innovation. 

In addition, Havas also claims its "new business strategy on driving meaningful innovation leveraging our meaningful approach".

Aside from Harman, Havas added several new clients throughout the year, including Trust Bank in Singapore, Philippines Airlines, Dolce & Gabbana in Japan, and Charles & Keith in Indonesia. It also retained South Korean car giant Hyundai after a multi-agency pitch.

The agency saw account losses in the Philippines, Australia, India and Indonesia, with a telco, a government agency and a fashion brand leaving for other agencies.

There were acquisitions in China with Front Networks and Australia with health communications agency Bastion Brands.

According to Campaign AI, which taps into data from consultancy R3, Havas ended 2022 in 7th place in the APAC media agency rankings with 50 wins and $15.7 million in net revenue. This is an improvement on its 13th place finish in 2021. 

We are upgrading the grade for this section to a B because of Havas Media's revenue and profit increases, wins for Harman and several new clients demonstrating their ability to grow their business.

Innovation (B-)

The metaverse and retail media were the talks of 2022, and Havas was keen to jump on these trends. Like many other brands and agencies in 2022, one of the agency’s innovations is the virtual space with the launch of the virtual Havas Village in The Sandbox.

Havas says this has helped brands launch and build connections with gamer consumers, though the cooling of metaverse hype and brand ROI on Web3 projects makes this one look less attractive in hindsight.

Two new business units, Havas Market and Frontier Australia, were also formed to tap into the growth of retail media in Australia. Havas Market’s proposition is its forecast tool which uses a methodology to identify incremental revenue opportunities across client websites and relevant marketplaces.

Havas invested in Frontier as it believes the agency will provide localised performance marketing expertise and insights across all channels for the Havas’ Edge Performance Network and its roster of global clients looking to expand into the Australian marketplace.

Another initiative, Meaningful Marketplaces, claims to provide a more impactful way of investing in trusted resources and minority-owned and operated media. While it may not make a huge difference in the industry overall, this is nonetheless a step in the right direction, So too were some of its research initiatives, like the 2022 Red Sky Predictions report in partnership with DoubleVerify, to provide a safe environment for clients' ads. Havas’ whitepaper on post-COVID commuters was also illuminating. 

We are upgrading Havas’s grade in this section to a B- as the agency demonstrated the initiative to innovate and adapt to the current climate.

DEI & Sustainability (C+)

There are more women than men among Havas Media's permanent staff, but the percentage of female representation in senior management is lower. The figures remain confidential. The agency argues it does not want to focus on achieving gender parity but on hiring the best talent available.

Havas points to Australia, where Virginia Hyland is CEO, saying the agency is an outlier with a female senior executive in that market. It also reports eliminating the gender pay gap in Australia.

The agency points to its policies and initiatives to ensure equal pay, zero tolerance for gender-based discrimination, and fair employee compensation, as evidenced by an annual compensation review and an end-of-year survey monitoring average gross salary between gender and general position levels.

Havas has also implemented and partnered with various initiatives to empower and enable women across the ranks, including the Meta’s Pass Her The Mic initiative, Flex Your Lexi Workshop Launch, and Women Who Inspire initiative. 

The agency has taken steps to support domestic and family violence victims and help transgender and non-binary employees. Havas has also signed the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles, launched a series of workshops for underprivileged students, and initiated partnerships with local NGOs and universities to provide interview preparation training and internships.

On sustainability, Havas achieved a 56% reduction in GHG emissions by the end of 2021 compared to its 2018 baseline. 38% of the agency’s electricity consumption came from renewable energy sources in 2021, up from 17% in 2020. Statistics on progress in 2022, however, remain elusive. 

Sustainability initiatives in its offices globally, such as water conservation, recycling programs, and limiting paper consumption, continue.

We retain the ‘average’ grade as the company has made efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, including policies to ensure equal pay, zero tolerance for gender-based discrimination, and initiatives to empower women across the ranks. 

The agency has also made progress in sustainability, significantly reducing GHG emissions and increasing renewable energy consumption but we need more updated progress. Plus, we want to see more female representation at the senior level. For now, we’re keeping this score ‘average’.

Creativity & Effectiveness (C)

Among its highlighted work, Havas points to the Burger King BBQ Cheesy Trio campaign. The agency partnered with Spotify to create a playlist named "BK BBQ Cheesy Trio Medley," which connected the three types of cheese to the musical concept of 'trio.' 

For Lee Kum Kee, Havas Media China created a campaign that used Hacken Lee and the Hong Kong music variety show "Infinity and Beyond" to enhance brand exposure. By live-streaming appealing content and using various forms of media to amplify the messaging, the campaign increased sales by 60% and brand awareness by 14%, with slogan awareness up by 76%.

For Now TV, Havas Media developed the "Home of Sports" package to increase subscribers for their new addition, SPOTV, to compensate for cancelled or delayed live sports events due to the pandemic. The messaging was tailored to different types of sports lovers with targeted delivery through programmatic. The two-pronged approach successfully drove awareness with attention-grabbing media placements and product consideration.

Havas’ grade here will remain a C. While the campaigns appear creative and practical, they do not stand out compared to other agencies and did not win any significant awards.

Management (B-)

Havas Media saw more hires than exits in 2022, which is good. But the agency’s employee turnover rate was relatively high. While total figures remained confidential, Havas claims it was not as high as compared to other agencies in Australia, where Havas claims the market turnover rate was above 50%. 

CEO Greater China Karl Wu, CEO India Rana Barua, CEO Australia Virginia Hyland and CEO Singapore Jacqui Lim continue to assist chairman and CEO Alberto Canteli in overseeing the APAC region.

There was movement in Vietnam, with Alexandre Sompheng promoted to CEO in Vietnam and Thanh Bui moving up to managing director.

Wu had a chance to showcase his leadership when Shanghai was under strict Covid lockdown restrictions. He led the agency to react quickly to deliver supplies to staff twice when needed. 

The agency also showed concern for their employees' physical and mental health while working from home by creating games that support physical and mental health. 

For instance, Havas has a health department called Havas Health & You. During the lockdown, they came up with many tips on staying healthy and shared them through our video channel.

The agency stresses it improved its retention rates by focusing on talent development and learning initiatives that contributed to better talent attraction and retention, including Havas University, which also helped to improve client campaign work.

There was a good gender split for the agency’s promotions in 2022. Havas Media promoted Uday Mohan to the president and chief client officer for India, Alicja Cybulska to chief strategy officer for Southeast Asia and North Asia, Gayatri Utami to the strategy director for Indonesia, and Adam Steward to head of performance and ecommerce in Australia.

Increasing the grade to B- in this section seems appropriate. While the high turnover rate concerns us, there have been no huge missteps by the management, and good business results are positive signs.

Media (64%) Performance (10%) Programmatic (12%) Content Social & PR CX Coty GAC Trumpchi Hermes Hugo Boss Hyundai & Kia Indo foods Michelin Puma Swarovski Yum! Brands B: Our journey to making a meaningful difference only strengthened our product this year but enabled us to deliver maximum effectiveness and efficiency for our clients.