HAVAS LAUNCHES POP AUSTRALIA, NAMES RAONI LIMA HEAD OF CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY

Havas has launched POP Australia, its first Asia-Pacific Centre of Excellence for AI-powered production, appointing Raoni Lima as Head of Creative Technology. Combining traditional craft with proprietary AI, POP Australia aims to preserve creative integrity while delivering faster, more relevant executions, aligning with Havas ANZ’s “Deliberately Different” positioning.  

Havas has unveiled POP Australia, its first Asia-Pacific Centre of Excellence for Prose on Pixels (POP), the AI-powered global craft-at-scale network. The new operation fuses traditional production expertise with advanced AI capabilities, including proprietary Vermeer.ai and Converged.AI, supported by a local team with three decades of film and advertising experience.  

POP Australia spans filming, editing, post-production, animation and VFX, while integrating AI-enabled workflows to help brands achieve more within existing budgets and tighter timelines. The initiative responds to a common frustration in production: ambitious ideas being scaled back due to cost and time constraints. Managing Partner Matt Hearn emphasised that POP Australia was built to preserve creative integrity while delivering faster, more relevant executions.  

The launch also sees Raoni Lima appointed Head of Creative Technology. With over 20 years of experience across agencies and studios in Brazil and Australia, Lima rejoins Havas to lead the integration of creative technology into POP’s production model. He stressed that the true value of AI lies not in generating content, but in knowing how to integrate tools selectively to extend creative and commercial possibilities while keeping craft in human hands.  

James Wright, Group CEO of Havas ANZ, described POP Australia as a “deliberately different” move, designed to deliver agility, integrated capability and production outcomes beyond scale alone. Operating within Havas Village ANZ, POP Australia will connect with the wider creative, media and customer experience network, led by Chavvah Stuart, Head of Creative Innovation, who highlighted relevance over volume as the ultimate goal.