Havas Group Reimagines PR Group with Launch of Red Havas

In line with its global rebranding, Havas PR Philippines becomes part of the Merged Media micro-network

The passionate and incredible REDsters of Red Havas Philippines (L-R): Marco Grajo, Account Manager; Jookie Radoc, Media Relations Manager; Charisse Vilchez, Business Unit Director; Janessa Tek-ing, Senior Account Manager and Cid Santillan, Account Director.

As creative and media agencies face a near-daily redefinition of their identities and scopes of work in the modern media landscape, public relations agencies in particular are being completely reconstructed. How can PR companies adopt at the pace of today’s lighting-speed multimedia landscape?

Havas Group, with its shared Merged Media strategy, announced that it has rebranded a number of its award-winning PR and social agencies including its Manila office under a new name, Red Havas. Through Merged Media, the micro-network reimagines the way it does PR and drives its agencies to new heights by blending traditional and digital publishing, content, social media, and data in a way that defines the future of PR as a category.

Red Havas’ office in Manila, Philippines is part of leading fully-integrated media and creative agency, Havas Ortega (HVO). Under the tutelage of Business Director Charisse Vilchez, Havas PR Manila will now be Red Havas Philippines, along with other Asia Pacific-based Red Agency networks in Australia, Singapore and Havas PR North America with offices in New York City, New England, Phoenix and Pittsburgh. In addition, Red Havas has rebranded its Havas PR offices in Vietnam and Jakarta, Manchester, Edinburgh and opened a new office in London. The new brand has expansion plans to Japan and South America within 18-24 months. 

“Havas Ortega welcomes the rebranding of our PR team to Red Havas. The current team is more than ready to take on the challenge and bring PR to the next level. Red Havas Philippines, together with its passionate and incredible REDsters, will help create our clients’ brand stories through Merged Media,” said HVO Chief Executive Officer Jos Ortega. “I am confident that with Char’s experience working in two strong online brands OLX and Agoda and her training at Red Havas in Australia, we will be able to live up to our ambition of owning Merged Media in the local scene.”

The rebranding coincides with global-led investments into data, content and bespoke insight tools, which will include listening and predictive analytics platforms that will layer in a foretelling media capability not seen before within the industry.

“The guiding light of PR has always been to integrate brands or organizations stories into the daily conversations of the media ecosystem,” said James Wright, global chairman of the Havas PR Collective and global CEO of Red Havas. “PR is one of the most powerful tools that brands can use to connect to audiences, but it’s essential that it integrates seamlessly across content types and sources and operates at the pace, and in the ways, of today’s consumer. With content, social and predictive data at the core, we’ve built a model that merges all of the various media sources and essentially redefines the PR capability entirely.”

Commenting on the global rebranding, Yannick Bollore, CEO and chairman of Havas Group, said: “Red Havas is a new, transformational and unmatched micro agency network that will help redefine PR and its value to clients. Along with the power of Havas Group and the world-class entertainment capabilities we have within Vivendi, the proposition of merged media becomes very interesting. We have big ambitions to develop and invest in this further.”

Red Havas is part of the Havas PR Global Collective, the PR and communications arm of the Havas Group that comprises approximately 40 agencies around the world and more than 1,300 employees. At this stage, there are no plans to rebrand other Havas-owned PR agencies.