- Havas has acquired a majority stake (51%) in Uncommon Creative Studio, in accordance with a press release. Uncommon’s founders will retain a cloth stake (49%) within the independent creative company, which the deal values at roughly $90-$135 million.
- Uncommon will retain its brand and the flexibility to make its own decisions across its client partners, internal team and creative output. The shop is anticipated to strengthen Havas’ presence within the UK and expand its presence within the U.S., where it already has clients.
- Havas is billing the acquisition as proof that creativity is central to its offering. Founded in 2017, Uncommon was recently named Ad Age’s International Agency of the Year and has twice been named Creative Agency of the Year within the UK.
The acquisition of Uncommon by Havas sees the Vivendi-owned holding company swimming against the tide of most up-to-date agency holding company deals, lots of which have focused on data and technology relatively than creative agencies.
“Uncommon will bring latest energy, creativity, and audiences into Havas’ already leading-edge creative network, igniting, inspiring, and supporting every aspect of creativity,” Yannick Bolloré, chairman and chief executive of Havas, said in a press release.
The move also represents an investment in human creative capabilities at a time when the ad industry is concentrated on artificial intelligence (AI) as a technique to cut costs and increase speed. Agencies are forecast to exchange 7.5% of jobs with automation by 2030, per a recent Forrester report, and holding corporations WPP, Publicis and Omnicom have recently made moves within the space.
“Brands will give you the chance very easily — with none promoting agency — [to create] a mean creative campaign,” Bolloré told The Wall Street Journal. “The agencies that shall be thriving in the longer term shall be those with the perfect planners and the perfect creative executives.”
Uncommon was founded in 2017 by three industry veterans that had worked together at WPP-owned Grey London and counts Google, Pinterest and Nike’s Jordan brand in Europe and the U.S. amongst its clients. The shop employs 160 full-time staff and can open and staff a New York office as a part of the deal, which won’t lead to any layoffs, per the Journal.
The deal will bring Uncommon into the network of each Havas and Vivendi, which also owns Canal+, Universal Music Group and Gameloft, giving the agency opportunities to expand into entertainment, design, gaming or other geographies, Uncommon co-founder Natalie Graeme said in a press release.
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