Havas brand & visual identity | Conran Design Group

With a 188-year history and global presence, Havas is one of the world’s leading communications groups, perfectly placed to deliver award-winning creative, media and brand experience for its clients. But over time, its brand had become fragmented and difficult to navigate. Here’s how we brought meaning – and a more intuitive client experience – to one iconic global brand.

Challenge

Brand fragmentation had led to Havas’ key points of differentiation – the Havas Village model and the link to parent company Vivendi – being obscured by a proliferation of sub-brands and promotional initiatives.

The new brand needed to highlight Havas’ core values of integration and collaboration, improve client-centricity by clarifying the brand architecture and navigation, and elevate and protect key brand differentiators like the Havas Village model.

Solution

Our work with Havas began with a diagnosis. Rather than change the Havas positioning, purpose or vision, we needed to amplify these brand elements, along with the Havas name and Village philosophy. This would require a unified brand architecture that put the focus back on Havas, clarified the offer, better reflected the needs of clients, and offered a simplified and more integrated customer journey.

After interviewing CMOs of some of the group’s biggest clients, we clarified the architecture by adopting a client-centric approach and putting the emphasis on services rather than business divisions. The new architecture also elevates and protects key brand differentiators, like the Havas Village model.

The refreshed Havas brand conveys positive movement and balances the premium quality and sophistication of the existing brand with a new sense of dynamism and modernity. A 25-degree angle signifies positive momentum; the angle stems from the marque but runs into the wider design system to provide a robust and flexible framework for brand expression.

Impact