At Ad Agency Havas -- Another Quarter, Another Cherry-Picked Poke at Rivals
Havas (HAV), which usually reports last out of all the major ad agency holding companies, took the opportunity of its Q4 2009 results to make some insulting comparisons to its rivals -- as it does regularly. Nothing wrong with that, of course. But it's still worth noting that Havas blatantly cherry-picks this data, including it in some quarters and seemingly forgetting all about it in others.
Even though Havas' revenue is down 7.9% on an organic basis to €1.44 billion, Havas' charts show the network -- which consists largely of Havas Media and Euro RSCG, the agency that coined the term "metrosexual" -- near the top of the pack:
Havas also showed a chart comparing growth in its operating profit to the declines at the other companies, such as WPP (WPPGY) and Omnicom (OMC). Oddly, this chart was missing from its Q2 2009 report and its Q4 2008 report. I went back to a couple of the other companies' filing for those periods and found that the definitions Havas uses to describe their profit margins are different than the ones used by the companies themselves, thus making it difficult for anyone to see if the missing comparisons looked good or bad.
Neither chart made an appearance in its Q1 or Q3 results, the "off" quarters when European rules allow companies not to report in any detail.
Similarly, Havas also added a new chart of net income margin comparisons today, which hasn't been seen in its disclosures for any of the last five quarters.
Say what you like about a company that makes only €92 million in profit a year -- they still know how to spin it into good news.
Cherries image via Flickr user The Gifted Photographer, CC 2.0 Related: