Maurice Lévy tenure as chief executive of Publicis as been marked by aggressive acquisitions. In recent years, those deals have been focused on digital advertising, Publicis bought the
online-marketing business Digitas in 2007; search-marketing business Performics from Google Inc. in 2008; and Razorfish last summer.
In 2009 Publicis made more than a quarter of its
$5.55 billion revenue from digital ads, more than its Dublin-based rival WPP PLC or U.S behemoth Omnicom Group Inc. The company expects 3% organic growth this year, Lévy says, compared with the
2% organic growth rival WPP expects to achieve. He puts Publicis' relatively strong performance down largely to the digital-ad market. Eventually, Publicis aims to make about a third of its revenue
from digital-ad activities, up from 27% at the end of March.
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