An International Network

So many U.S. advertising agencies have crowded into Europe that late starters have a hard time finding a place in the crowd. Still, the 20th biggest U.S. agency last week joined with the largest agency in France and the second largest one in Britain to form an international advertising network. Manhattan-based Needham Harper & Steers, which had billings last year of $115 million, made the deal with Britain's S. H. Benson and France's Univas, the international arm of Havas Conseil. While they did not merge, they created a company called Benson Needham Univas, or BNU. Its $300 million in combined billings is expected to make it the largest ad network in Europe and the tenth largest in the world.

The deal was signed in Manhattan by the three agencies' chiefs: Needham Harper's Paul Harper, Havas Conseil's Jacques Douce and S. H. Benson's E. W. ("Micky") Barnes. Though each company will retain its name in its home country, it will operate under the BNU banner in foreign markets. Plans call for each agency to buy an estimated 20% share in the equity of the other two and to exchange some directors with each. Marketing information will be traded on an unusually broad scale among BNU's 49 global offices, and there will be regular exchanges of research, media and creative specialists. The new venture is the most striking example yet of the fast-growing trend toward large multinational groupings in advertising.

For Needham Harper, whose accounts include Campbell Soup and Xerox, the new arrangement formalizes a three-year affiliation with S. H. Benson, which has offices in London and throughout the Commonwealth. Havas Conseil is an attractive partner, partly because its parent company, Agence Havas, is 56% owned by the French government. In France close ties to the top can be an asset for any newcomer attempting to traverse the bureaucratic maze. Through a subsidiary, the French agency also has exclusive contracts to operate in the Soviet Union, East Germany and Yugoslavia. That arrangement will give Needham Harper an entry into the still primitive but potentially important advertising fields of Eastern Europe.

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