The global head of Publicis’ VivaKi has denied the newly-acquired Amnesia Razorfish agency will be merged with Digitas, but said the former will act as a “big brother” to the latter.
David Kenny also ruled out any immediate restructuring at Razorfish, which was acquired by Publicis Groupe from Microsoft earlier this month for $631m.
“Both Digitas and Razorfish are needed in this market,” he told B&T Today during a visit to Australia last week. “Digitas is a bit more about e-commerce and data, while Razorfish is about brand marketing.
“We don’t need to merge the agencies, but they can share back room capabilities. I see Razorfish as being a big brother to Digitas and I look forward to them collaborating.”
Kenny added: “Razorfish is an important addition as it helps transform us to a digitally-led company rather than a traditional media company.
“It has a very tight operation in Australia and we want to invest and keep its growth going. There’s no need to lay people off there.”
Kenny said the arrival of VivaKi and Digitas, launched into Australia by former Carat managing director Mandy Henry earlier his year, has been well received by clients and media owners.
“We have an ambitious mission here, but we’ve heard nothing but support from media owners,” he said. “It’s still early days, but there are new business conversations going on at the moment.
“It’s very new for media owners to have VivaKi in Australia, but we are moving to help media owners get stronger and produce content they want to see.”
He added: “There’s no reason why Razorfish and Digitas can’t be the two largest digital agencies in Australia.
“There’s been some good tactical work here, but I don’t think anyone’s cracked it. I don’t want to dismiss the competition, but we want to deliver something new. No one has hit the right mark yet in this market.”
