Gurugram, India – Havas Media Group India, the media expertise division of Havas India, has announced a significant elevation of its senior leadership team across functions to further strengthen its structure. 

The strategic restructuring is part of the agency’s expansion of its business and service portfolios through collaborations and increased efficiency, in line with its unprecedented growth.

According to Havas, the elevation of the senior leadership team is a testament to the agency’s commitment to delivering unparalleled media solutions to its clients. The newly elevated senior leadership team will bring their extensive industry experience and expertise to drive the agency’s growth, foster innovation, and enhance its service offerings. 

Two of the key elevations are Roopali Sharma and Harbir Singh, now as president – North 1 and North 2, respectively, at Havas Media India. The two will further strengthen client partnerships, profitability, and business relations.

Saurabh Jain has also been elevated as president – South, Havas Media India and will be responsible for scaling up the momentum and growth of the agency’s success story in South — a key focus market for Havas Media India. 

Meanwhile, Manish Sharma, in his elevated role as managing partner – West, Havas Media India will continue making significant contributions to Havas’ successful journey in the West region. New business acquisitions, growth of the existing roster and service strategy will be integral to his role.

As the Chief Strategy Officer for Havas Media India, Sanchita Roy will likewise drive strategic innovation and growth to the next level for clients and the agency alike. She will be bringing with her a deep industry experience and vision which made her a fitting candidate to represent the agency at global platforms like Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and Campaign Agency of Year – South Asia in 2022.

Lastly, Rohan Chincholi has been appointed as managing partner – digital services, Havas Media India, where he will strategise on expanding and enhancing the agency offerings and outcomes to ensure being at par with the digital industry’s evolution in current times.

The team will report to Uday Mohan, managing director, Havas Media India. Commenting on the elevations, he said, “I feel great pride in seeing the team on a rapid growth path. The elevations are aimed at recognizing the team’s commitment and further strengthening our core ensuring heightened focus on sustainable growth and unlocking greater possibilities. Best wishes to all for the new journey with additional responsibilities.”

Havas Media Group India CEO, Mohit Joshi also said, “We are delighted to elevate our core leadership team to new roles. Their exceptional dedication and business acumen have been critical to our success.”

He added, “In 2023, we have set very high growth targets for ourselves, and I am confident that the team will tap into attaining exceptional results aiding us create a meaningful difference in the country’s media eco-system. Congratulations to all.”

This follows Havas Media Group’s recent media mandate wins, including PUMA India and Paradise Biryani.

Gurugram, India – Paradise Biryani, one of India’s most iconic biryani brands, has appointed Havas Media Group India, the media expertise arm of Havas India, as its media agency of record.

The integrated mandate comprising offline and digital media duties will be handled by the agency’s Gurugram office and will be led by Roopali Sharma, president-north, Havas Media India alongside Uday Mohan, managing director, Havas Media India.

 As part of the mandate, the agency will drive the brand’s media strategy across all offline and digital media channels, aiding the enhancement of the category leader’s presence and market penetration across the country. 

With the partnership, Paradise Biryani is seeking to further strengthen its positioning in key markets pan India by increasing visibility and reach among its target audience via strategic communication. Havas Media Group India will leverage its expertise to create a highly targeted strategy to resonate with Paradise Biryani’s constantly expanding audience base by amplifying the brand’s messaging.

Talking about the association, Gautam Gupta, managing director and CEO, Paradise Food Court Pvt. Ltd. said, “For a much-loved brand such as Paradise Biryani, the strategy has to be extremely well thought through to tap into the pulse of our target audience. Havas Media Group India with its proven track record, in-depth market knowledge and media expertise stood out for us as the perfect media agency partners.”

Gupta also shared that they are certain that the partnership will enable the brand to meet its future goals and desired outcomes in a manner that is “precise and strategic.”

“We are delighted to lend our expertise to Paradise Biryani, a brand that has been catering to India’s love for authentic biryani for six decades. The key focus will be to leverage our robust media proficiency, helping the brand connect better with evolved consumer tastes and thereby build an even stronger brand presence and loyal audience base,” said Mohit Joshi, CEO, Havas Media Group India.

Mohan likewise remarked that designing customized solutions that fit the stature of such a brand requires skilled new-age capabilities and market comprehension, which is the core competency of Havas’ team of professionals. 

“Havas Media takes pride in partnering with the brand to deliver groundbreaking strategies to further strengthen Paradise Biryani’s extend and positioning across newer markets as they expand their footprint,” Mohan added.

Recently, Havas Media Group India has also been appointed by sports brand PUMA in India as its media agency of record to oversee its entire offline and online media service suite.

Bengaluru, India – Sports brand PUMA in India has appointed Havas Media Group India as its new media agency of record. As part of the mandate, the agency will be overseeing the entire offline and online media service suite including Digital, TV, Print, Radio, OOH, and cinema mediums for PUMA. 

Under the partnership, Havas Media will be identifying, designing, and executing strategic media engagements for PUMA. Just recently, the agency has also extended its offline media services to PUMA for its campaign announcing Anushka Sharma as its brand ambassador.

Moreover, the account will be managed by the agency’s Bengaluru team, helmed by Saurabh Jain, president – south, Havas Media India. Meanwhile, Uday Mohan, managing director at Havas Media India, will support the team in devising the strategy and ensuring seamless operations.

Commenting on the occasion, Shreya Sachdev, head of marketing at PUMA India, said, “PUMA holds a leading position in sports and lifestyle segment in the country with state-of-the-art product innovations and influence on youth culture.”

Sachdev added, “As a brand, we keep a sharp focus on staying relevant and resonating with our audience across markets and platforms. With Havas Media Group India, we look forward to effectively connect with our consumers at scale.”

Mohit Joshi, CEO, Havas Media Group India, also commented, “PUMA as a brand is known for its strong voice and vibrant spirit. Havas Media Group India has been on an upward trajectory consistently; last year was a landmark year for us as we were recognized as a dominant agency by RECMA and secured second place among all media agencies in the country.”

On winning the mandate of PUMA, Joshi said, “At Havas Media, we focus on designing and delivering impactful media solutions and hence, resonate with PUMA’s efforts to leverage relevant consumer touch points, services and messages that hold immense credibility for its audience. We are excited to make a meaningful difference for Brand PUMA and look forward to a fruitful partnership.”

Recently, Havas Media has also bagged the account of international financial services firm Sun Life for its markets in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia.

Australia – Havas Media Group has named Rebecca Tos as its new managing partner, where she will lead the new Havas Market× business division, integrating customer experience, e-commerce, and data, working alongside paid media and content activation to help marketers find opportunities to engage consumers across the entire customer decision journey.

A seasoned CEO and marketer, Tos has been building and transforming businesses and brands both strategically and commercially for more than 23 years. She has previously held executive leadership roles, including leading 150 people as managing director of the Dentsu-owned Merkle group of performance, data, and tech businesses, and spent five years as CEO of Columbus. 

Since 2020, Tos has been an advisor to tech, digital and e-commerce companies, including Havas Media since last year.

Speaking on her new role, she stated that she feels energised every day to be working with the agency’s exceptional talent and clients to continue optimising customer experience throughout the e-commerce journey. 

“Customer and shopping experiences have become complex, personal and omnichannel. Leveraging our proprietary technology and expertise,  it’s incredibly rewarding, seeing the impact we have on customer conversion rates, experiences, and imperatively, our clients’ revenue and bottom line,” Tos said.

Meanwhile, Virginia Hyland, CEO of Havas Media Group expressed her optimism in appointing Tos in the role, stating that her deep expertise in ecommerce, customer experience, data, CRM, tech, and performance made her ideally suited to build on the agency’s momentum from 2022’s client work and growth.

“Havas Media’s focus is to answer the challenge marketers face in finding the best opportunity to engage with audiences, whether through ecommerce, content, or paid media. As we strive to be the agency partner that helps marketers operate with ease across the customer decision journey,” she said. 

Hyland added, “We have now moved our capability from optimising within [the] channel to engaging and influencing audiences across the customer decision journey. Rebecca’s passion and experience in the retail sector, has already enhanced the agency, bringing customer experience to the fore, combining ecommerce consulting, marketplaces, SEO, email marketing, CRO, as well as data and analytics.”

Hong Kong – Digital media measurement company DoubleVerify has teamed up with agency Havas Media in Hong Kong to be its preferred partner on offering pre-bid brand suitability, fraud, contextual activation and viewability solutions.

The partnership comes months after DoubleVerify’s partnership with Havas Media in Australia.

To support the activation of DV solutions and enable understanding on verification and relevant market trends across the agency, the digital teams at Havas Media Group Hong Kong are currently enrolled in DV University (DVU) with the aim of achieving agency-wide certification by end 2022. 

DVU is a self-guided online training and certification platform which includes standard onboarding training of the DV advertiser suite. This will empower the teams in Havas Media Group to leverage DV’s actionable insights to effectively achieve their digital campaign objectives. 

Jeremy Chang, enterprise sales director at DoubleVerify, said, “We are thrilled to be the exclusive programmatic verification partner for Havas Media Group in Hong Kong. Through this partnership, we are helping Havas Media Group’s clients drive quality and performance in the post-cookie era, without sacrificing consumer privacy, by aligning advertising with high quality, relevant content.”

Meanwhile, Louis Ng, head of programmatic at Havas Media Group Hong Kong, commented, “To invest in the most meaningful media, we should think about how we set a high standard for ensuring media quality within the complex digital environment. Our partnership with DoubleVerify allows our clients to further protect their investments and actively drive media quality and effectiveness by tapping into DoubleVerify’s expertise in programmatic solutions.”

Singapore – Far East Organization, Singapore‘s largest private property developer, has handed its media mandate to Arena Media Singapore following a rigorous business review process. Arena Media replaces PHD Singapore, the previous incumbent agency. 

As media agency on record for the organization, Arena Media will oversee the account’s media planning and buying for traditional media, as well as support its performance marketing strategy. These responsibilities cover Far East Organization’s diversified portfolio of businesses spanning residential, hospitality, retail, commercial, and industrial segments as well as the Agape Business Group, comprising Store-Y, a self-storage facility, Agape Laundry, and social enterprise Agape Services. 

Leroy Lim, general manager of Arena Media Singapore, attributed the win to the agency’s expertise in “creating meaningful experiences using creativity, media and technology.” 

“We are honoured to be working with Far East Organization and look forward to driving greater growth and enrichment together through our data-driven digital-first strategies,” said Lim. 

Arena Media is part of the Havas Media Group. In June, Lim was appointed to the GM position.

Singapore – Havas Media Group, the media arm of global marketing and communications group Havas, has launched its strategic full-service e-commerce offering ‘Havas Market’ in Singapore. The move follows the agency’s recent appointment of Prayarana as head of e-commerce. 

Designed to create a more meaningful shopping experience for consumers, Havas Market provides an end-to-end solution that aims to support clients looking to transform their commerce approach in order to reach an engaged audience across a highly competitive category. 

Moreover, Havas Market will provide a comprehensive understanding and analysis into the brand’s e-commerce environment, including marketplaces such as Amazon, Lazada, Shopee, TMALL, JD.com, and Social Commerce, as well as D2C, and eRetail. This approach will be guided by Havas Media Group’s unique Mx process that uses connection, context and content to create the most meaningful experience for a consumer.

Through the new offering, Prayarana will be helping unlock and support clients in the marketplace space, and will be reporting to Deanson Lee, executive director of digital strategy and client solutions at Havas Media Group.

Prayarana said, “Brands need to continuously evolve to win in today’s e-commerce space. I look forward to leveraging my past experience and Havas Market’s capabilities to future proof and transform our client’s businesses.”

Meanwhile, Lee noted, “The e-commerce space in Singapore has seen tremendous growth with a shift in shopping behaviour post-pandemic. I am confident that under Prayarana’s stewardship, Havas Market will help clients drive sales across the full shopping ecosystem to optimise their e-retail businesses.”

New York, USA – Global media platform Teads and Havas Media Group have released the results of ‘Project Trinity’, a collaborative research study, which was announced in 2021, that explored the drivers of user engagement in publisher environments, providing metrics and analysis to create a virtuous circle for digital advertising that balances the needs of publishers, advertisers and readers.

The research found that readers pay more attention to advertisements when they are engaged in the content the ad is placed within, with articles generating nearly 600% more attention than subcategory pages and 160% more than homepages. Ads placed in the centre of the screen on mobile received 25% more attention than ads on the side of the screen. 

Moreover, the research has revealed that ‘ad clutter’ weakens attention, with sports sites delivering twice the quantity of ads per screen, but only generating half as much attention per ad when compared to news sites. It also found a 20% balance between ads and content optimised user attention and limits the perception of clutter, suggesting that one larger ad over multiple smaller ones is more effective in garnering reader attention.

Jon Waite, Havas Media Group’s global head of activation, shared that they are committed to delivering meaningful media that connects with audiences in a specific context where a brand’s message can be effectively delivered.

“Project Trinity validates our philosophy that meaningful media experiences start with great user engagement, providing analysis for brands to deploy media investment in content that engages consumers and for publishers to create a sustainable digital ecosystem where the presence of ads enhances the user’s experience,” said Waite.

The study used eye-tracking and behavioural data passively collected from more than 2,000 US and UK panellists by Lumen Research in 2018, measuring engagement with content by a user’s dwell time per screen and scroll speed. Comparing site categories, the analysis found that news, science and sports websites generated the greatest user engagement. The news was the best performing category for time spent watching ads across gender and age groups, validating brands’ ability to both support quality journalism and forge meaningful connections with consumers through their media investment.

Caroline Hugonenc, Teads’ SVP of research and insights, said that Project Trinity should be a clear marker that the quality of attention an ad receives is as much of a driver of advertising outcomes as the raw volume. 

“The user engagement with the content is clearly impacting the attention level on the ad and therefore creating value for our ecosystem. As we start to build out models for buying attention, it’s important that both buy-side and sell-side are aligning on delivering great user experiences that will benefit the full trinity of advertiser, publisher and user,” added Hugonenc.

Singapore Havas Media Group has officially appointed the General Manager of Arena Media Singapore, Leroy Lim. In his role, he will lead the agency’s integrated & digital media operations, agile communication planning approach, data proposition and new business. 

Lim is tasked to build on this momentum to chart an impactful growth story for Arena Media, under the leadership of Russell Lai, newly appointed Chief Commercial Officer of Havas Media Group. 

Havas Media Group’s Chief Commercial Officer, Russell Lai, said, “Arena Media is autonomous in its innovation and vision but fully integrated with our capabilities on a group level. I am confident Leroy will continue its great track-record in tackling marketing and communications through technology and a different perspective.” 

On the regional front, Lim continues to drive the regional growth and international business of the group, through the deployment of Media Experience (MX) planning framework. An approach that facilitates clients in building meaningful brands through media experiences. It was a role which he took on when he first joined the agency and will continue to drive this function under the stewardship of Jacqui Lim, CEO of Havas Media Group & Chief Growth Officer (SEA & North Asia) of Havas Group. 

Jacqui Lim, CEO of Havas Media Group and chief growth officer (SEA & North Asia) of Havas Group, commented, “Leroy has been a strong asset for our group across both local and regional businesses. And it’s always heartening to see our talent in the group flourishing and stepping up to bigger opportunities while still working as one under the multi-agency and multi-disciplinary Havas Village. We’re all looking forward to writing the new chapter together as a leadership collective.” 

According to Lim, Arena Media has always differentiated itself with its data driven expertise and digital first strategies. Embedded in this vision are the commitments of relevance, performance, transparency and proprietary data curation for clients. “I’m looking forward to working alongside my teams and the rest of the Havas Village disciplines to deliver further growth and great results for our business,” added Lim.

Sydney, Australia – Havas Media Group, the media arm of global marketing and communications group Havas, has become the first media agency in Australia to activate digital media measurement, data, and analytics platform DoubleVerify‘s (DV) Authentic Ad™ metric as the default measurement currency across client campaigns.

The DV Authentic Ad™ is a proprietary, MRC-accredited metric that ensures an ad is fully viewed, by a real person, in a brand-safe environment, within the intended geography. It gives advertisers clarity and confidence in their digital investments and creates actionable insights to drive performance optimisation.

The initiative is designed to maximise the cross-channel digital investments of the brands Havas serves and drive superior campaign outcomes. In order to support the activation of DV Authentic Ad™ as standard practice across the agency, the digital teams at Havas Media Group Australia are currently enrolled in DV University (DVU), with the aim of achieving agency-wide certification by the end of the first quarter in 2022. DVU is a self-guided online training and certification platform which includes standard onboarding training of the DV Advertiser’s Suite. 

This will empower the teams in Havas Media Group to leverage DV’s actionable insights to effectively achieve their digital campaign objectives, which is seeing Havas Media Group implementing DV Authentic Ad™ Measurement across every client, every campaign, and every channel by default, though clients may opt out if desired. 

Kevin Fernandes, Havas Media Group’s head of data solutions and adtech, shared that they have taken the unprecedented step to deploy DoubleVerify’s measurement solution as a standard to protect their clients’ investments, and also improve the media experience by actively driving media quality and effectiveness.

“We’ve already been able to use insights from DoubleVerify to make fundamental shifts to campaign variables, such as formats and publishers – which has significantly increased campaign outcomes,” said Fernandes. 

Meanwhile, Sophia Warren, DoubleVerify’s client strategy director for ANZ, noted that Havas Media Group’s clients will be protected from wasted investments and unsuitable content, while the agency will be able to optimise media spend using their campaign insights. 

“Effective optimisation of media is critical to address increased media fragmentation and a decline in consumer trust, resulting from concerns around data privacy, fake news and high-profile brand suitability incidents,” said Warren.