• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, January 24, 2011

Havas Worldwide has acquired a majority equity stake in social specialist Socialistic, the agency holding company said Monday. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Led by industry vet Colleen DeCourcy, Socialistic's 20 employees consist mostly of "application technologists" who work with a network of content creators, including journalists, writers and videographers.

"Socialistic is a marketing technology studio," said its CEO Colleen DeCourcy. "The output isn't campaign driven; it's product and community driven. And that's a big change from the normal agency model."

Under Havas, the Socialistic studio will be based in New York, working with clients from around the world to create mobile applications, digital out of home, in-store experiences, branded digital products and brand-owned media destinations.

Socialistic is DeCourcy's first independent foray since leaving Omnicom Group's TBWA last summer. At TBWA, DeCourcy served as global chief digital officer since 2007.

Socialistic is expected to partner with Havas' other agencies, such as Euro RSCG Worldwide and Arnold, along with media clients like Facebook. Socialistic recently completed a program for Facebook Places, which involved a geo-located music distribution network and what was billed as the first social pirate radio station.

While Socialistic could give Havas' agencies a boost, social marketing isn't unknown territory for any of them. In 2009, for one, social ad targeting firm Media6Degrees partnered with Havas Digital to create ad solutions for the agency's Virtual Brand Network for Advertisers.

That said, as Facebook remakes the Web in its own image, the social marketing category has never been hotter. Last week, for instance, email service provider Emailvision announced the acquisition of social media marketing firm ObjectiveMarketer.

"Social media has rapidly evolved from becoming a personal habit to a business-critical form of communication and revenue generation for brands," Emailvision CEO Nick Heys said on the news.

Late last year, meanwhile, Dachis Group acquired social marketing specialist Powered and its 60 employees.