- Brian Morrissey

NEW YORK Digitas is continuing its global expansion with the addition of Brazilian digital shop Tribal.
 
The Publicis Groupe acquired the decade-old Sao Paulo-based shop to add to Digitas' global capabilities. Tribal provides clients like Philips, Chrysler and Whirlpool with media and creative services, as well as analytics. Tribal has about 100 employees.
 
Since buying Digitas in late 2006, Publicis has expanded it to the U.K., France, India, Singapore and China. Digitas expanded into continental Europe with the addition of Business Interactif in June 2007. The next month it bought CCG to give Digitas a foothold in Asia. Headquartered in Boston, Digitas now operates in 12 markets.

"The plan for us is to insure we have presence in all the key areas of the world that matter to our clients, places where there's opportunities and where our clients want us to be," said Laura Lang, CEO of Digitas.

Digitas has no plans to halt its international expansion  in the face of a weakened economy, according to Lang. "It's nice to have a piece of news that isn't gloom and doom," she said. "Our belief this is a very difficult year but we have to remain committed to building our agency and being there for clients. These are parts of the world that will continue to grow. There's still opportunities."

Tribal will operate as part of Digitas Latin America. Its management, including CEO Pierre Mantovani, will report to Digital Latin America CEO Francois de La Villardiere.
 
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.