Havas Media Group UK Launches ‘Magnet’ Division

Havas Media Group UK has launched a new division bringing together the talent, skills and expertise of all Havas Media Group companies, Arena, Havas Media, AIS, SCB Partners, Branded, Havas Sports and Entertainment, Arnold KLP, Simbiotik and Cake to offer clients across the Arena and Havas Media portfolio more connected and bespoke, partnership solutions. 

The new division, Magnet, is a unique proposition that will offer a fresh and collaborative approach to clients through the creation of a centralised Partnerships function. The Magnet team will work on fulfilling each client’s brief in a unique way providing brands with fast and full access to the breadth of partnership expertise throughout the Group, including digital, branded content, sports and entertainment, brand partnerships, talent management, affinity marketing and experiential.

Magnet will be headed up by Daren Benton, Head of Partnerships at Havas Media Group, previously Deputy Head of Partnerships at Channel 4, and Mel Leslie, Partnership Consultant at Havas Media Group. Their focus will be on crafting partnerships that fully leverage paid, owned, earned and shared media opportunities to consumers and brands. Havas Media Group are in particular prioritising the fourth element of ‘shared’ which revolves around uniting two consumer brands to leverage each other’s assets.  Daren and Mel will report to Pedro Avery, CEO, Arena.

The new division will further support Havas Media and Arena’s reputation as industry leaders for the digital age, and underpins the Group’s focus on building meaningful brands that create shared value for both people and communities.

Clients will also benefit from the unique research capabilities of SCB Partners (acquired by Havas Media in 2013) to measure the success of these partnerships as well as being able to measure the impact of partnerships on their proprietary Meaningful Brand Index.

Pedro Avery, CEO, Arena said: “Our clients know that business success is hard to achieve on their own. Our new Magnet proposition is designed to maximise the role of Partnership marketing to help brands find the right partners to drive engagement and sales. It’s fast becoming important to the way we work as an agile and results driven organisation. Our new team are proven leaders in their area, and initial projects have been a huge success.”

Paul Frampton, CEO, Havas Media added: “ I am really excited about this new division as it will enable our clients to seamlessly  access the potency of our earned and owned expertise from across the whole Group. Our design around “shared” partnerships between brands is a future-proofed approach for a partnership model that will cease to revolve only around classic media owners.”

Magnet will be setting up in the Havas Media Village at St Martin’s Lane this month, further enhancing the digital powerhouse created by the Group in October 2013.