In our April issue, we had a conversation with Yannick Bolloré, CEO, Havas, about the early days of the ‘Village’ model, why consolidation is important, plans for 2025, and what he thinks about Sir Martin Sorrell’s suggestion that it should merge with Dentsu.

During the course of our chat, Bolloré shared the origin story behind the Havas Village approach, a structural and strategic overhaul of the network that physically brought together different agency disciplines under one roof.

Over five years, Havas undertook significant construction projects to bring this model to life globally. The core principle was simple: make internal complexities invisible to clients by encouraging collaboration across departments with a single profit and loss account.

He shared, “When I joined Havas in 2011 and became CEO two years later, it became clear to me that the siloed model of agencies where each vertical operated in its own bubble was no longer serving our clients. It was overly complex and inefficient. So, in 2013, we launched a strategy called ‘together’, which aimed to dissolve these silos and create a more unified, client-focused way of working. That’s how the ‘Village’ model was born.”

Bolloré also noted how digital evolution contributed to the disintegration of a once straightforward creative-media model. Clients, particularly CMOs, were increasingly burdened with managing multiple agency relationships even when those agencies were from the same group. This prompted Havas to act decisively, leveraging its relatively smaller size at the time (15,000 people globally) to adopt an integrated structure faster than its larger competitors.

“The rise of digital advertising fragmented the landscape significantly. Suddenly you had different teams for search, social, programmatic, and so on each operating in its lane without any real cohesion. We found that even within Havas, people working on the same brand didn’t know each other. Clients were the ones trying to connect the dots. That’s not how it should be," he said.

Looking ahead, Bolloré expressed cautious optimism about revenue targets. Despite a slight organic decline in 2024, he remains confident that the momentum from new business wins and client renewals such as Reckitt in India will help Havas achieve its growth ambitions. He expressed, “In 2025, we’re aiming for global organic growth of over 2%, and we believe regions like APAC and Africa will be within that range as well. India outperformed that benchmark in 2024, which gives us a lot of confidence for this year.”

Bolloré went on to offer a strategic take on one of the biggest mergers in adland. Rather than seeing it as a threat, he views the Omnicom-IPG union as an energiser for Havas' challenger positioning. Talking about this, he said, “The Omnicom-IPG merger is a major event for our industry. The third-largest and fourth-largest holding companies coming together will naturally bring about a lot of scale and cost synergies for them. But for us at Havas, it’s equally an opportunity. It gives us room to differentiate ourselves further our closeness to clients, our entrepreneurial mindset, and our integrated Village model are all things that set us apart. We consider ourselves the strongest challenger in the industry, and this move motivates us even more.”

He also dismissed industry speculation sparked by Sir Martin Sorrell about a possible Havas-Dentsu tie-up, reaffirming the company’s independence and focus.

“Sir Martin Sorrell has his opinions, and I respect him, but no—we’re not exploring a merger with Dentsu. They’re a great company, and we’ve had previous ties with them through Aegis. But currently, there are no conversations, no plans, and certainly no merger talks with any competitor," Bolloré remarked.

Sharing a perspective on the Indian market, Bolloré underlined the importance of Havas’ global ambitions, pointing to its consistent investments and impressive growth metrics as proof of long-term commitment.

He shared, “We’ve invested significantly in India over the last eight years. Since 2020 alone, the agency has grown fivefold. Today, we’re over 2,500 people strong and work with more than 400 clients in the country. We’ve found an excellent cultural fit with India—it’s a market where our values and approach resonate.”

For more on our conversation with Bolloré, click here to buy the April issue.