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 maneuvers.
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.”
