Paris - June 28 – Publicis Groupe (Euronext Paris: FR0000130577 and NYSE: PUB) and Dassault Systèmes (Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA and Nasdaq: DASTY) today announced the signature of a memorandum of understanding to create 3dswym, a global joint venture in the field of web-based 3D. The joint venture company, based in Paris, will 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.   

The 3dswym venture derives from a shared vision of Maurice Lévy, Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe and Bernard Charlès, President and CEO of Dassault Systèmes, about the future of marketing. Both men are convinced that successful marketing must permit consumers to enter the product creation process at a much earlier stage, so that products and services are in fact co-generated with them. 3dswym’s online 3D solutions are perfectly adapted to this kind of collaboration and stand to radically change marketing by markedly improving the success rate of new products, giving clients a real competitive advantage.  

3dswym will help marketers through:  

• 100% matching consumer needs, desires and expectations. 3dswym’s web-based 3D platform functions as an R&D engine to conceive and create new generation products and retail concepts, with consumers. With 3dswym’s focus on the “Consumer Journey”, from creation of products to how they are presented, packaged, what point-of-sale should resemble and how they will be used at home.
• Speedier time to market, fewer marketing errors and much-reduced environmental footprint using 3D tools to define the best and faster and most effective product development, virtually replacing the need to produce physical prototypes and models.
• Highly-customized product roll-outs, leading to more efficient commercialization, more in line with the full diversity of consumer imagination. 

Very simply, and by means of a few clicks, the consumer will be able to redesign packaging or refashion a  product by redefining its form, its colours – and then see his or her ideas come alive in three dimensions on a supermarket shelf or at the consumer’s own home.   

3dswym is the product of an unprecedented strategic partnership linking two global leaders in their respective sectors. It leverages the vast consumer intelligence and global marketing skills of Publicis Groupe with the cutting-edge technology of Dassault Systèmes, a world leader in 3D software and Product Lifecycle Management Solutions.  3dswym is aimed in particular at the client base of both companies, which together includes some of the largest consumer, retailing, and manufacturing groups in the world.

Maurice Lévy, Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe said, “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. 3dswym is the product of an extraordinary strategic partnership between Dassault Systèmes and Publicis Groupe, an indication of the kind of innovative marketing solutions which can result from collaboration between best in class experts in 3D technology and specialists in strategic marketing as well as consumers. Without exaggerating we can say that there will be a “before” and an “after” 3dswym in the field of marketing products and services through retail channels.” 

Bernard Charlès President and CEO of Dassault Systèmes said “Literally, SWYM is the acronym of See What You Mean. Ultimately, consumers will participate to the co-creation of products and services that will fulfill their practical needs and dreams. 3D enables true life experience using the 3D virtual world as a powerful media to imagine, share and experience. Our online 3DVIA platform is the key enabler for our joint venture.”

3dswym will be 51%-owned by Publicis Groupe and 49% by Dassault Systèmes. The creation of the joint venture is subject to the signing of definitive agreements. The entity will draw on the products and services of Dassault Systèmes for technology and software solutions and on the marketing knowledge of Publicis Groupe for communication and consumer insights.

Press conference today with Bernard Charles and Maurice Lévy at 10am, 133 Champs Elysées, 75008 Paris