Why Horizon and Havas are joining forces in the U.S. market

“This was a unique opportunity for us to bring [a] new proposition into the game,” Peter Mears, Havas Media Network global CEO, told Digiday.

Why have Horizon and Havas joined forces?

The U.S. market is important to Havas — 33.8% of its revenue (€925 million, or $1.08 billion) came from North America in 2024, according to its annual report. But relative to their holding company peers, Havas and Horizon are snappers swimming among whales. Given Omnicom and Interpublic are weeks away from forging the largest advertising group in the world, that’s not a comfortable position to be in. 

At the same time, president of Horizon Holdings Bob Lord and Mears said there’s opportunity afoot for agencies in the right spot. WPP’s troubles never cease, Dentsu’s international business is on the auction block, and clients may find themselves struggling for attention. “We believe that we are going to become, […] hopefully, the preferred choice of these large marketers that want a culture of transparency, less bureaucracy, less complexity,” said Lord. 

Those marketers, noted Madison & Wall founder Brian Wieser, are likely to sit within a “narrow profile” – companies principally occupied with the American market, but with a large enough international presence that they need an agency that stretches across borders. “In that case, Horizon has a better shot of winning business, and Havas gets some extra volume,” he noted.

Steve Boehler, president of the Mercer Island Group consultancy, agreed: “This is a smart idea to compete better for U.S.-based global clients of a certain scale. If you’re spending maybe $100 million globally, and a lot of it is in the U.S., this provides an alternative to the giant holdcos.”

Havas and Horizon are also touting the effect of their team-up on their respective AI capabilities. Both operate their own AI platforms — Horizon’s is called Blu, while Havas has Converged. U.S. clients of the new venture will have access to a double decker version of those platforms, dubbed BluConverged.

“Havas will benefit significantly from Horizon’s Blu platform, as Converged as a marketing operating system is a little over a year old, and relatively nascent compared to the rest of the category,” noted Forrester vp and agency analyst Jay Pattisall in an email. 

Under the hood on Havas and Horizon’s alliance

Horizon Global will operate solely in the United States on global accounts led by Lord as interim CEO, and Paris-based Renata Spackova as global COO. The joint venture’s board will include Mears, CEO and founder of Horizon Bill Koenigsberg, Havas CEO and chairman Yannick Bolloré. Horizon and Havas will each hold 50% of the new venture.

Staff will be drawn from both Horizon and Havas on an account-by-account basis, Lord said.

Elsewhere both Horizon and Havas Media will operate independently, and even compete with each other for domestic U.S. clients. Mears left the door open for future collaborations with Havas’ creative agencies, for U.S. clients expanding into international markets. “We expect that if there’s an opportunity for Horizon Global to build in some creative capabilities, then we would hope and expect that that would be run through the Havas Creative network,” he said.

Joint ventures are a lesser-spotted form of deal in marketing. They’re often reserved for situations where a market incumbent sees benefit in bringing ashore an international operator without a foothold, as with Japan’s TBWA\Hakuhodo or Havas GIMC in China. In a sense, that’s what’s happened here — with established Horizon taking Havas’ hand.

A cautionary tale can be found in Local Planet, an assemblage of agencies formed in 2016, of which Horizon was – and still is – a stakeholder. The idea of it was to gather, but not sew together, agencies across the globe to create a global network. Ultimately, said one consultant who spoke on condition of anonymity, it never amounted to much.

Local Planet, “always positioned themselves as being best of both worlds, providing this global network, but it was ultimately comprised of lots of independent agencies,” they said. “The trouble is, clients ended up having to pay for a very bloated management layer that sat on top, and all the agencies had their own P&Ls panels, and they’re all very independent. So it never really gathered much steam with with clients.”

‘Joint ventures rarely worth the paper they’re written on’

Horizon Global aims to be different. But success will depend on how well its constituent teams are able to gel for clients. “Partnerships don’t work for everybody. They don’t feel connected enough for some clients,” said Boehler. “If it comes across as being seamless and seems seamless, then it can work. If it comes across as, ‘Oh, I now have two agencies that I have to deal with on a billing basis, on a media operations basis, then it’s a lot of questions.”

The consultant who spoke on condition of anonymity noted, “Unless there is genuine skin in the game, [joint ventures] are rarely worth the paper they’re written on.”

​​“[It’s] the sort of thing where clients will have to take a risk on,” said the consultant. “By no means is this going to be as compelling as an Omnicom-Interpublic, a WPP or a Publicis, where you’ve got one operating model, one way of working, all that pedigree and case studies and experience of actually delivering at scale.”

Perhaps the agency group that ought to feel the most threatened by Horizon Global should be Dentsu, itself in a state of transition. The company’s holdings outside Japan are for sale, with private equity buyers considered the likeliest suitors. It’s difficult to win new business, when your own business is an object of speculation.

The consultant noted that Dentsu was widely expected to be the biggest beneficiary of clients leaving the “Big Three” because they weren’t large enough to command the attention of those holdcos’ A teams.

Now, it seems the combined clout of Horizon Global could offer a tempting alternative, especially while Dentsu’s fate hangs in the air. “Dentsu is going to be looking at this thinking, ‘I didn’t see that one coming,'” said the consultant. “And they were probably rubbing their hands thinking they could clean up in the U.S. with those disaffected clients.”