Publicis launches digital advertising plan

PARIS (Reuters) - Publicis, the world's fourth largest advertising group, on Wednesday launched a strategic initiative called VivaKi to boost performance in the fast-growing digital advertising market.

Publicis said Vivaki would spur growth at its digital advertising units such as Digitas and Zenith-Optimedia.

"VivaKi will take advantage of the combined scale of the autonomous operations of Digitas, Starcom-MediaVest, Denuo and Zenith-Optimedia to develop new services, new tools and new partnerships," the company said in a statement.

Publicis aims to generate 25 percent of its sales from the Internet by 2010.

VivaKi will be led by David Kenny, the head of Digitas, and by Publicis Groupe Media's chairman Jack Klues. Laura Lang will replace Kenny as head of Digitas.

As part of the VivaKi initiative, Publicis also announced the creation of an "Open-Source Audience On Demand Network" that will use tools provided by tech giants Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and AOL's Platform-A.

The goal is to allow clients to connect with targeted global audiences in "a single campaign buy across the multiple networks", the statement said.

Until now agencies and clients had to work through a very fragmented environment of advertising networks, exchanges and direct publishers relationships.

"We don't believe that digital media companies are aiming to disintermediate, we believe they are providing the industry with the technology to help us, plan and executive campaigns more efficiently," Kenny said.

In January, Publicis and Web search giant Google revealed they were joining forces to expand in digital advertising but few details on that cooperation had emerged. The companies said only that Google would exchange its technological know-how for Publicis's analytical and media planning expertise.

The news of the cooperation came one year after Publicis bought Digitas for $1.3 billion.

It also followed a buying spree last year which saw Internet and technology powerhouses such as Google, Yahoo or Microsoft snap up several leading Internet ad agencies.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)