The last two years have been a roller coaster for Publicis Groupe. Following the introduction of its “Power of One” philosophy, the group has restructured, reorganized, launched new agencies, merged some and so on.

Now, it has once again, announced three new changes:

Creation of Publicis Spine to fuse consumer and enterprise transformation
Organization of digital business transformation assets into industry verticals
Aligns DigitasLBi to Publicis Media for access to additional scalable data and media resources
 

Publicis Spine
 

Publicis Spine fuses together all of Publicis Groupe’s data assets, technology, and talent, strengthening the company’s unique proposition to drive and link both marketing transformation and digital business transformation.

Spine encompasses three core components:

Unified data matching of 1st, 2nd and 3rd party sources to create unique IDs, which inform when, where and how to engage consumers and with what message.

PeopleCloud, a cloud-based platform that uses data to identify sources of client growth at the individual level. This end-to-end platform combines behavioral and semantic intelligence to inform media and creative decision-making, activation, and dynamic measurement.
The merge of 3,500 engineers, analysts, and strategists from across Publicis Groupe into one centralized data and analytics team that will help clients turn data into business insight.
Leadership:

Lisa Donohue, global president of Starcom, will serve as CEO of Publicis Spine. Donohue will be succeeded in the Starcom role by John Sheehy, formerly president of global clients for Publicis Media.

Jason Kodish, currently global chief data scientist at DigitasLBi, will serve as chief data officer of Publicis Spine, and Steve Simpson, who currently runs Publicis Media’s global Analytics and Insight practice, will serve as President of PeopleCloud, with both reporting to Donohue.

Donohue will report to Arthur Sadoun, Chairman & CEO of Publicis Groupe and Steve King, CEO, Publicis Media, and Publicis Groupe Directoire member. Sheehy will report to King.

Organization of digital business transformation assets into industry verticals
As Publicis Groupe organizes its digital business transformation assets within Publicis.Sapient into industry practice verticals, Nigel Vaz will lead digital business transformation efforts for Publicis Groupe, in addition to continuing in his role as CEO of Publicis.Sapient EMEA and APAC. He will be responsible for overseeing the digital business transformation industry practice leaders and delivery teams.

DigitasLBi aligning within Publicis Media
DigitasLBi’s alignment within Publicis Media will see the agency report to King.

Michael Kahn will serve as global president of DigitasLBi – a role that he takes on from Nigel Vaz.

Kahn, a digital native, spent the early part of his career at e-commerce start-ups, before joining Performics in 2005, ascending to the role of Performics global brand president and growing the agency to 57 markets worldwide.

David Gould, previously chief delivery officer of Performics, will take on Performics global brand president duties, succeeding Kahn in this role.

“These moves are the natural next steps in the development of our model, further strengthening capability on both the marketing and business transformation fronts and, importantly, closely interconnecting them, fueled by all of our data expertise,” says Sadoun in a statement.

“In today’s world, [the] brand is the experience and the experience is the brand,” adds King. “These capabilities will help us unlock that potential for clients, catalyzing their reinvention and growth, and creating a better experience for consumers.”