Havas Group Accelerates E-Commerce Growth Through Acquisition of Expert Edge in the UK

Havas Group has acquired ecommerce consultancy Expert Edge to accelerate its global expansion of Havas Media Group’s full-service ecommerce agency Havas Market from the UK. The acquisition equips Havas Market with the tools to offer clients end-to-end support across their ecommerce ecosystem and positions the agency as ecommerce consultants that look beyond media.

Expert Edge brings to Havas Market specialist capabilities in strategic consulting and expert operational capabilities in ecommerce. The business has roots in supporting brands to grow their global revenues on Amazon. HMG clients will now have access to Expert Edge’s expertise in Data Insights & Reporting, Amazon Advertising PPC, Product Listing & SEO Boosting, Content Optimisation and DSP on Amazon to build out their ecommerce enterprise.

The acquisition strengthens HMG’s capabilities in providing a full-funnel suite of services across the ecommerce journey. These services include awareness and attention (traditional, digital and performance media) right through to sale (product, pricing, forecasting, organic, shops, logistics) and much more. Sitting within Havas Market, Expert Edge’s capabilities will operate from the UK and its services will be accessible to clients through the Havas network locally and globally.

Yannick Bolloré, chairman and CEO of Havas Group, comments, “We are delighted to welcome the Expert Edge team to the Havas family. This acquisition turbocharges our Havas Market offering, which has been purpose built from the outset to help our clients manage and optimise their business performance in ecommerce. Our ambition is to make the Havas Group, through Havas Market, an end-to-end e-commerce partner for companies, capable of providing them with truly customer-centric strategies across the entire customer journey, from their website to their points of sale, including marketplaces.”

Havas Market was launched in October 2020 to create more meaningful shopping experiences for consumers and drive meaningful growth for brands in commerce. Havas Market has since expanded to over 20 markets, most recently launching in Australia, India and Singapore in Q2 2022. Other offices include Madrid, New York, Paris and Santiago de Chile. It is also currently supported by over 2000 media performance specialists across the HMG network, working with the likes of Dreams, Pernod Ricard and JDE.

Patrick Affleck, CEO UK & Ireland, Havas Media Group UK, said, “Ecommerce is a huge opportunity but it’s complex and costly to not get right. As such, there’s a pressing need to rethink the ecommerce journey to deliver more meaningful and joined up retail experiences for the end customer. We want Havas Market to be a one-stop shop for our client’s ecommerce needs, whether that’s D2C businesses looking to scale up or established brands looking to create new routes to market. Along with our other recent acquisitions, we’re equipping Havas Market with all the necessary skills, tools and technology to help give our clients the competitive edge as they seek to fully realise the digital retail opportunity.”  

The acquisition follows the integration of digital experience agency Inviqa into Havas CX and award-winning integrated digital agency and Google partner Search Laboratory and dynamic creative optimisation specialists additive+ into HMG UK in February, April and September this year respectively. Inviqa shapes digital experiences, products, processes, and culture, meanwhile Search Laboratory provides implementation, training and service support for Google’s suite of tools and additive+ brought dynamic creative optimisation into Havas UK for the first time.

Expert Edge was founded in 2016 by Alex Walker with David Jennison joining to lead and run the business in 2018. They previously worked together at Amazon where David launched Amazon Global Selling and ran the marketplace business for Softlines before joining Expert Edge. In four years, Expert Edge has worked with over 100 brands, including Unilever, DASH and launch client, Tenzing, helping the drinks brand grow its Amazon sales revenue over 100% in both 2020 and 2021.

David, who’ll become managing director of Havas Market as well as CEO of Expert Edge, said, “We have developed a powerful mix of technology, data analytics and commercial frameworks to deliver optimal growth strategy for brands on Amazon. While our origins are in Amazon, our capabilities, services and expertise are channel agnostic and malleable across categories and sale on any retail channel. Havas Media Group offers Expert Edge the opportunity to scale what we do best, and internationally, and that’s to transform approaches to ecommerce.”

All Expert Edge staff will move to HKX, the Havas Village in King’s Cross, London. Alex Walker becomes a non-executive director and will continue to support David Jennison and the HMG team as a member of the board. David will report into Patrick Affleck and will join the Havas Media Group leadership team.