Publicis Groupe posted a 5.5% increase in third quarter organic growth in North American on revenue of €685M and 6.4% overall to €1.4B over Q3 of 2011.
Its U.S. business climbed 5.2% during the quarter, but chairman and CEO Maurice Levy warning of a slowdown in Q4.
“There will be no lack of challenges, but we have every confidence in the capacity of our teams to overcome them, and in our strong strategic positioning,” he said, noting a “climate of economic difficult and uncertainty” and ZenithOptimedia forecasts which have been revised downward from 4.1% in July to 3.6% now.
Levy said clients may cut media budgets “more heavily” because of sales and profit woes in the fourth quarter.
Publicis, which acquired 186-staffer Schwartz Communications during the quarter, said key account wins for the first nine months at its MSLGroup PR division included TAQA (UK and Dubai); Ancestry.com (USA); AQMD-Incremental (USA); AstraZeneca (China); ADP (China); Insinkerator (China); Star TV (India); Bosch (Germany); Securite Routiere (France).