Publicis Picks Up Search Marketing Firm Perfomics From Google

(MoneyWatch)  It's increasingly looking like out of the Big Four holding companies, Publicis is the one positioned to be the big winner in the coming years as online eats up larger ad budget. Via our pal The Founder over at Tribble Ad Agency, the French holding company bought Google's Performics for an undisclosed amount.

This is all part of Publicis effort to shift towards online, beginning with its founding of digital arm VivaKi, which I've written about before. This deal will help its media buyers target search better. Tribble has this gem from a Publicis spokeswoman:

An unnamed spokeswomen from Publicis replied to the question:
"How do you think this Performics deal will affect the rest of the holding companies"

Her reply:
"they (the holding companies) are going to have a hell of a time catching up"

Why was Google looking to unload Performics? Google acquired the company as part of its acquisition of DoubleClick, but it had been expected to sell Performics quickly. Performics essentially advises companies how to up their Google rank, so being owned by Google presented an obvious conflict of interest.