It may be on course to make 25 percent of its revenues from emerging economies by 2012, but French advertising giant Publicis is still making acquisitions in its western European heartland. The company has bought Zurich-based multimedia and Flash programming agency Nemos and added it to the global and Swiss divisions of its Publicis Modem digital agency. Terms were not disclosed. With a staff of 10, Nemos also does web development, mobile and web marketing as well as CMS development and counts Carlsberg and Movenpick among its clients. Pascal Urscheler, a former CEO of Nemos and senior brand director of Publicis in Zurich, will co-lead the expanded Publicis Modem Switzerland group. Worldwide, the Modem division now employs 1,200 people in 40 offices, including in South Korea, following last year’s acquisition of the Portfolio digital agency. Release.
Meanwhile, Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy — ever the realist when it comes to the state of the economy — now thinks 2009 is shaping up to be worse than expected for the ad industry. He tells Capital,fr, via Reuters.com, that “the advertising market is locked in a downward spiral,” and things haven’t stopped getting worse so far this year. In February he predicted a drop of two to three percent in annual global ad spend in 2009, but he says “it is now accepted that the drop will be even stronger”. And you’ll have to wait until Q310 to see any improvement, he says.
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