Publicis Groupe can thank its investment in first party data management, digital media and commerce for its strong start to 2023, confident of performing at the high end of its guidance for the rest of the year.
The global advertising company last week reported better than expected March revenue of €3.458 billion, representing organic growth of 7.1% in the face of “challenging” economic conditions.
CEO Arthur Sadoun says he believes clients, facing economic challenges, aren’t going to cut their investment on transformation.
Some will postpone decisions but Publicis is prepared for that, he says.
Sadoun says the advertising group's revenue mix, go-to-market and platform organisation gives the company greater resilience to the business cycle.
He says Publicis, in a market that will continue to change dramatically, was able to capture a shift in client investment towards first party data management, digital media and commerce.
“It is clear that the current macroeconomic environment is increasingly challenging, with the recent tension in the banking system, adding to the ongoing war in Ukraine, high inflation and interest rates,” he told a briefing of market analysts.
“But as demonstrated by Publicis our revenue mix, our go-to-market and our platform organisation gives us greater resilience to business cycle.”
The company is now more confident of hitting annual organic growth at the higher end of 3% to 5%.
Data and tech together now represent one-third of Publicis revenue, the result, says Sadoun, of decade-long investment in real time data and technologies.
“This is a reason why we have grown faster than the industry and the global economy, particularly since the pandemic,” he says.
“Concretely, in 2022 we outperformed the industry average organic growth by 300 basis points on a three year basis led by Epsilon and Publicis Sapient, which again will be accretive in 2023.
“But we are not stepping down. We keep on adding value and scale them to our future facing expertise to actually strengthen our competitive advantage. This is the case in identity marketing, where we constantly enrich Epsilon capabilities and its 300 million profiles globally.
“In digital media, we are building solutions based on our real identity to increase our client business outcomes through fast-growing new channels by connecting Epsilon to our scaling media for connected TVs, and … retail media.
“Next year when it comes to business transformation, we will continue to further our scale and our global footprint in everything we do.”
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.