Earlier this week, the Vivendi Group announced its first Vice President of Web 3.0, Fabien Aufrechter. The French group owns the film and television company Canal+ and the six major global advertising agencies Havas, among other gaming and publishing interests.

“Following a hackathon attended by experts from across our businesses, we identified important projects within the metaverse leveraging our intellectual properties and are currently evaluating their technical feasibility and business model,” said Félicité Herzog, director of strategy and innovation at Vivendi.

Aufrechter previously ran Havas Blockchain since its launch in 2018 as an ICO advisory firm, which sought to weed out dodgy crypto initiatives by launching ’10 Commandments’. It became a blockchain and crypto startup studio. In 2019, he launched fan tokens to reward sports fans for their engagement. Despite the early move, others have dominated the sector, with Socios creating a massive business in that niche.

Havas was also involved in advertising industry initiatives that explored the use of blockchain to improve transparency and trust in the online advertising industry.

“Vivendi has a great head start in Web 3.0 due to its pioneering talents, several years of internal projects, and over a hundred clients and projects supported, as well as valuable internal audit work,” said new Vice President of Vivendi web3, Aufrechter . “Decentralized technologies represent a commercial lever and an important transformation tool for Vivendi.”

In 2021, Havas launched Metaverse by Havas, a consulting practice, and this April took the plunge by establishing a presence on The Sandbox. With Havas Group distributed in 100 countries, it already had 68 Villages, and the presence of The Sandbox reached 69.

“The metaverse offers a wealth of new media and new opportunities for the communications industry and for brands,” said Yannick Bolloré, Chairman and CEO of Havas Group. “Whether the goal is to create original and meaningful experiences, reach new target audiences, or simply reinforce an existing bond, the possibilities are virtually endless.”

Havas also plans to use the metaverse to launch a recruiting service, as well as an onboarding experience for recruits. During the pandemic, Accenture used its metaverse platform to onboard 150,000 new employees.