Havas Creative

In 1970, Bernard Roux and Jacques Séguéla established an agency called Roux Séguéla. In 1972, Alain Cayzac joined Roux Séguéla, and the company became Roux Séguéla Cayzac.

In 1975, Havas Conseil reconstituted as a Eurocom holding company.

In 1976, Roux Séguéla Cayzac merged with Jean-Michel Goudard to form RSCG; each letter in RSCG corresponds to the name of each of their founders: Roux, Séguela, Cayzac, and Goudard.

In 1991, Eurocom S.A. acquired RSCG to form Euro RSCG. In 1997, Euro RSCG Worldwide moved its headquarters from Paris to New York; American executive Bob Schmetterer was named chairman and CEO.

In 2001, the company acquired a minority stake in UK financial public relations firm, The Maitland Consultancy.

In 2012, the firm, having by then been acquired by Paris, France-based advertising and public relations company Havas, was rebranded as Havas Worldwide.

In March 2022, Havas announced the acquisition of Front Networks, an independent creative agency focusing on social and digital marketing in China.

The firm consists of four divisions:

Havas Worldwide (Strategy, Creative, Production Automation & Implementation)

Havas Worldwide Digital (Digital, Direct, Data & Analytics, CRM, Promotions, Channel Management, Motivation & Education)

Havas PR (Public Relations, Corporate Communications, Internal Communications, and Corporate Identity)

Controversies

In July 2019, the firm created an advertisement for a Singaporean media company. In the ad, Mediacorp actor and deejay Dennis Chew, who is Chinese, appeared in "brownface" - the act of darkening one's fair skin to mimic that of another race — as an Indian character and as a Malay woman wearing a headscarf. The ad sparked backlash online and Havas worldwide apologized subsequently.