Havas Red

Just like The Foo Fighters, who dominate rock, alternative, and hard rock charts worldwide, Havas Red spent the course of 2025 climbing the agency charts.

The team of ‘Redsters’ won a whopping 16 new accounts across the year, including major brands such as L’Oréal, Tourism Fiji, Wise, GN Hearing and Tangerine Mobile — all of whom were on a retained basis. It also won eight clients on a project basis, five of which are on an ongoing basis.

Havas Red retained cornerstone clients including Toyota and Lexus following mandatory market reviews, while also extending its long-running partnership with Tourism Tasmania, where it continues to lead the brand’s global PR strategy.

It did lose five clients it worked with on a project basis during 2025, however. 

The team of 80 has built a culture that values flexibility just as much as performance. In 2025, Havas Red introduced its Flexible Holiday policy, allowing employees to swap certain public holidays for alternative days that “better reflect their cultural, religious or personal celebrations”.

CEO Shane Russell said the initiative recognises “the importance of personal and cultural holidays”, with the aim of creating a more inclusive workplace that accommodates diverse individual needs. Good stuff!

The agency also launched a Mental Health and Wellbeing Policy to foster a healthier workplace, encouraging employees to prioritise their wellbeing while recognising the positive impact this has on engagement and productivity. 

It also continued its generous parental leave policy, including superannuation payments during the unpaid portion of primary carers’ leave.

The agency’s investment in people extended well beyond policy. Havas Red delivered 12 promotions across the business, welcomed new executive leaders in Melbourne and Brisbane and invested almost $100,000 into training and culture initiatives. 

It also sent staff to learning opportunities in the UK, Spain, Portugal and Singapore, graduated eight interns, and even backed senior influencer manager Tinas Provis during her appearance on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!

The agency also “invested significantly” in AI products during 2025 and launched new “high impact” capabilities including GEO (or AI chatbot search visibility), ‘Art of Sound’, a sonic branding arm and CRed, which focuses on creator marketing.

The trophy cabinet across the agency’s offices is likely becoming crowded, after Havas Red claimed PR Agency of the Year at the CPRA Golden Target Awards, while Tourism Tasmania’s ‘Odd Jobs’ campaign collected Best Integrated Marketing Campaign, Best Broadcast Media Campaign and Best-in-Show for APAC at the SABRE Awards Asia-Pacific, before also being recognised among the Top 40 Global Campaigns of the Year.