Advertising Age published paradoxical propaganda from Publicis Groupe, allowing the White holding company to pitch itself by calling out how White holding companies, White advertising agencies, and White media firms pitch themselves to win pitches.
Publicis Groupe took the hypocritical hype a step further via an AI-generated video, overtly selling its suspect AI capabilities.
Not mentioned in the faux criticism of pitch practices:
1. The exclusivity—ie, White supremacy—holding companies exploit for dominating access to global accounts.
2. Prime Redlining practices.
Is the Publicis Groupe exposition a harsh critique or a helpful instructional guide?
Publicis calls out AI hype and other bad pitch practices as the industry heads to Cannes
By Brian Bonilla
Publicis Groupe, one of advertising’s most vocal proponents of AI-driven transformation, is heading into the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity with a different message this year: stop overpromising.
Its new satirical AI-generated video pokes fun at exaggerated artificial intelligence claims, free creative work and other questionable pitch practices, while also announcing that Publicis will host what Arthur Sadoun, its chairman and CEO, described as the holding company’s largest-ever gathering of clients and investors at the festival.
Publicis has spent years positioning itself at the forefront of the ad industry’s AI conversation through investments in data and AI-powered platforms, often using Cannes as a stage to promote new technology initiatives. This year, however, the industry’s third-largest player is using the festival to warn against what it sees as growing issues with how AI is being promoted as an efficiency play rather than one that drives business impact, causing a “race to the bottom,” Sadoun said.
“We like to use Cannes as a platform for industry transformation,” Sadoun said. “This year, we want to call out what we think is a very important topic, which is the current compound effect of overpromising on AI, and unsustainable commercial practices in particular in pitches.” He added that the trend is “currently leading to massive job cuts in our industry” as agencies claim “we can do more with AI and, by the way, we can be cheaper.”
The video, created by Le Truc, features reenactments of what Publicis executives say are real pitch stories they have heard over the past few years. Situations include agency executives promising clients they can do creative work for free, promising clients a $5 million bonus if they use an agency’s AI platform, cutting staff significantly, or even an instance where a client was promised a chance to go shopping with their favorite fashion designer in Milan if the agency won the client’s business.
While stories like this have existed for a long time in the industry, Sadoun said the promise of AI solutions to clients has increased these bad practices. “It is a big problem and, as importantly, this is not what clients want,” Sadoun added. “That’s the point we want to make. Clients are not expecting us … to put fewer people on their accounts. They are expecting us to use our talent and AI to deliver real business results.”
The film was designed to make a serious point through humor, said Carla Serrano, chief strategy officer at Publicis Groupe.
“We’re making a statement about how we’ve all gone too far and should, at this moment, really temper ourselves a little bit—especially in the pitch and contractual rooms,” she said. The current environment is one in which agencies are engaged in “AI pitch-maxing,” she added, arguing that “it’s time to get off the hype cycle.”
Publicis itself has long faced accusations from people in the industry that it wins business through aggressive commercial terms and by offering creative work for free to win media pitches. Asked directly about such criticism, Sadoun rejected the notion that the company’s growth has come at the expense of its business model.
“The industry has been saying that we are giving things for free since we became No. 1 in new business in 2017,” Sadoun said. “Since then, we have doubled our EBITDA, increased our revenue by 65%, hired 40,000 people.” He added: “Are we aggressive in what we do in commercial affairs? Of course we are—and everyone else is. But we are trying, as best as we can, to always come up with offers that, first of all, really deliver for clients.”
Sadoun pointed to Publicis’ creative business as evidence that the company is not giving away work to win accounts.
“We are the only ones growing in creativity, publicly. We are growing 5% when the entire industry is declining,” he said. “To anyone who says that we give creative for free, our answer is simple: we are growing 5% when the rest of the market is declining.”
Publicis has even changed its pitch strategy in the past 18 months, Sadoun said, with a focus on convincing clients to do a project and test out AI tools rather than launching formal reviews.
“It would be better if it were all about, ‘Let’s solve a business problem right now. Give us six weeks to do it and prove to you how we can help you drive the growth and success that you’re looking for,’” Serrano said.
At Cannes, Publicis is set to showcase what its executives said are tangible business outcomes from AI-enabled transformation work. The company plans to hold more than 60 closed-door client sessions across five industry verticals. Last Year, Publicis hosted over 40 sessions.
This will include a large session featuring conversations about business transformation with Gülen Bengi, global chief marketing officer of Mars, and Shakir Moin, president of marketing for North America at The Coca-Cola Company, which were two of the biggest accounts Publicis won last year. It will bring together 350 clients and 70 investors under Chatham House rules.
“We want to show not only the ups but also the downs, because clients are ready to hear about the downs and, of course, the outcomes that we have delivered through our relationship,” Sadoun said.
The gathering marks the first time Publicis has assembled a client-and-investor audience of that scale at Cannes, he said.
“We are doing it in a way where we want this to be a real conversation and actually exactly the opposite of prospecting,” Sadoun said. “We have nothing to sell. Actually, we’re going to try to undersell. We’re going to try to touch on the difficulties of what needs to be put in place to achieve the kind of business results that our clients are looking for.”
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