Publicis adds 3D web capability

Global - Publicis Groupe has agreed with 3D and product lifecycle management solutions company, Dassault Systèmes to create a global joint venture in the field of web-based 3D, called 3dswym.

The company will be based in Paris and offer a collaborative web-based platform allowing marketers to connect directly to consumers in order to jointly create and adapt new consumer goods and new retail environments using advanced Web and 3D tools. Although at press time Publicis Groupe chairman for APAC, Guillaume Lévy-Lambert could not go into details on implications for Singapore clients, he insisted that the "JV has global ambitions and would offer something revolutionary and unique" for Singapore and APAC clients as well.

3dswym was created out of the premise that successful marketing must permit consumers to enter the product creation process at a much earlier stage meaning products and services get co-generated with the consumer. The initiative's web-based 3D platform will basically work like an R&D engine, conceiving and creating products and retail concepts, with consumers - allowing them to redesign packaging or refashion a product by redefining its form, its colors.

"In today's world of the empowered consumer, the traditional theory of Adam Smith about supply and demand is being turned on its head. In the emerging demand and supply world, consumers will increasingly be called upon to have a say at different points along the entire innovation chain. Marketing in the future will depend in part on the creation of 3D virtual experience in which one can imagine, transform and create a retail outlet, a product, or packaging," Maurice Lévy, chairman and CEO for Publicis Groupe said in a statement.

3dswym will target the client base of both companies and will be 51%-owned by Publicis Groupe and 49%-owned by Dassault Systèmes. The name was derived from the acronym of See What You Mean.

The news is subject to the further signing of definitive agreements.