Publicis, the Parisian advertising giant, has secured the acquisition of London digital agency Poke for £10m.


Continuing the purchasing strategy laid down by veteran chief executive Maurice Lévy, Publicis' addition of Poke increases their digital offering, akin to the £333m buy of LBi and subsequent merger with Digitas earlier this year.

"Poke is a company that we have admired for some time," said Jean-Yves Naouri, Publicis Groupe's chief operating officer, in a statement. "This acquisition will further strengthen our Publicis UK offering by adding a new level of digital expertise, creativity and innovation to the Publicis UK group of agencies."

Founded in 2001, Poke will retain their 60 staff in London and the 25 in New York, and will initially continue social media, mobile and e-commerce campaigns for a client portfolio including Orange, Mulberry, the BBC, Ted Baker and Skype.

"We've had very successful and rewarding working relationships with Publicis Conseil in France and Publicis Chemistry in the UK for some time working across Orange and Everything Everywhere and the new partnership is simply a natural and positive evolution of these relationships," said Nick Farnhill, POKE founding partner and CEO in a statement.

"Particularly appealing is the opportunity to develop digital communication solutions beyond advertising with our new UK partners, the capacity to operate more effectively internationally and the potential of exciting career opportunities for our team. Digital isn't one thing. It's everything. So you can't get far without productive partnerships."