Digitas Launches Production Company
General Motors is the first client for a new venture, called Prodigious Worldwide, meant to serve all Publicis agencies.
Mere months after being acquired by Publicis Groupe, Digitas is creating a new production company designed to meet the demand for digital marketing services that one company official described as “almost limitless.”
The new company, named Prodigious Worldwide, will be headed by Corey Torrence, a veteran of Epsilon, Creditek and Invoke Solutions. He will report to Digitas Chairman and CEO David Kenny.
The first “anchor client” of the new venture is the Digitas digital production team for General Motors. In announcing the new company, Digitas said Prodigious will serve the digital production orders of all Publicis agencies as well as the broader market.
“The impetus behind establishing Prodigious as a separate entity … is to provide a centralized utility that can provide digital production not only for Digitas’ agencies but also for each of Publicis’ agencies,” said Torrence, adding Publicis agencies have experienced a growing need for digital production.
“The business challenge was how do we get more capability across the agencies and more consistency across the agencies so we are better able to serve clients all the way through their needs,” said Torrence. “Not just through a media buy or traditional advertising, but all the way through” to digital, “which is a growing component of their spend.”
While Digitas’ existing agencies (Digitas, Digitas Health and Modem Media) will continue to operate, digital production work will be “split off” and directed to Prodigious, said Torrence. He said Prodigious has a team of about 65 full-time employees, an additional 40 “representatives” and several hundred others working in the Ukraine, Costa Rica, India and China.
France-based Publicis recently purchased Digitas, of Boston, in an all-cash deal worth $1.3 billion, taking ownership of one of the few remaining large-scale standalone digital agencies. Digitas brought to Publicis a deep Fortune 500 client base and relationships with major Web platforms such as Yahoo, Google, MSN, Fox Interactive Media and AOL. Shared clients include Procter & Gamble, Heineken, Hewlett Packard, General Motors and AstraZeneca.
Publicis, in need of a better digital offering, pursued Digitas for a year. Prior to the Digitas deal, Publicis acquired Atlanta-based digital agency Moxie Interactive.
