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Havas acquires shopper marketing agency BD Australia

The Havas Group has acquired BD Australia, adding shopper marketing services to its ‘village’ model in a bid to offer more to its e-commerce, FMCG and retail clients.

The BD team with the Havas Village executive leadership

Led by managing director Simon Porter and executive creative director Tom Hoskins, BD Australia helped Havas win creative accounts for Bottlemart and SipnSave last year and are now supporting other businesses in the group, including Afterpay. 

The latest acquisition aims to bolster the group’s offering to clientsby combining the powers of data, economics and creative.

“The BD team uses data analytics in the study of shopper behavioural dynamics and behavioural economics to identify insights to aid smarter decision making. This in turn helps unlock creative ideas that solve business problems, ultimately driving commercial results,” a statement from Havas said.

Havas’ executive management team Anthony Gregorio, James Wright and Mike Wilson said in a statement: “Bringing BD Australia on board provides us with another fantastic asset in the Havas Village. We can now tap directly into their shopper data set and smartly apply those insights to our campaigns.

“Simon and the team are intelligent, strategic and nimble, always working at speed to find great solutions for their clients.”

Prior to working at BD Australia, Porter was marketing director at OneShiftJobs, and held the managing director role at Iris Worldwide for five years. He has worked with clients including Sony, Vodafone, Microsoft, Adidas and Coco-Cola.

Porter, who will report to the Havas’ executive management team, said the agency aspired to be “the leading creative solution for forward-thinking Australian clients looking to sell more product”.

“We’ve been looking for the right partner to elevate our offering in Australia for some time and have now found that natural fit in Havas, augmenting our existing skills with enhanced data, digital, media social, experiential and PR capabilities.”

BD Australia adds to The Havas Group’s current agencies, Havas Creative, Havas Media and Red Agency, and will be based at the Sydney office. There are no plans to change the agency’s name.

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