• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, February 14, 2008

French ad agency holding companies Publicis Group and Havas each reported strong fourth-quarter and full year 2007 results this morning, outpacing industry trends amid an increasingly shaky U.S. and global economy. Havas, the sixth-largest ad company in the world, performed relatively better, in terms of underlying growth, reporting a 9.8% gain in the fourth quarter and a 7.1% rise for full-year 2007. Publicis, the world's fourth-largest ad company, reported so-called organic growth of just 3.1%, missing its earlier projections of a 4.0% growth rate.

Publicis Chairman-CEO Maurice Levy described that as a "somber note" in an otherwise bright story, and attributed the lag to trouble in the pharmaceutical category. Both Publicis and Havas attributed much of their overall growth to the performance of their overall media operations and their digital media operations in particular.

While Havas' overall revenues rose just 4.1% over 2006, Havas media jumped 19.1% and Havas Digital climbed 28%.

Publicis did not break out the specific performance of its general media and digital media operations, but implied they were contributing disproportionately to its growth. In his statement, Publicis' Levy noted that digital now represents 15% of Publicis' total revenues, and reaffirmed the company's 2006 projection that 50% of its revenues would come from digital and emerging markets by 2010.

"A new world is coming into being before our eyes--a world marked by the incessant development of new technologies, by the co-creation of content and by the rapid emergence of powerful, high-growth economies," he stated. "For this new world, a new Publicis Groupe model: one in which we have made a radical shift towards digital and have moved to suppress internal silos. At the same time, we are reinforcing teams and capabilities in creative, digital and emerging markets."