Publicis Groupe claps back at its Marcel AI critics with Cannes campaign

Publicis Groupe Chairman-CEO Arthur Sadoun made waves in 2017 when he announced that the holding company would sit out from all major awards, including the Cannes International Festival of Creativity the following year. The money saved, he said, would be used to build out its AI talent management tool Marcel, which drew some incredulous reactions in the industry. “There was massive skepticism and criticism,” recalled Publicis Groupe Chief Strategy Officer Carla Serrano. Cannes Lions coverage Follow our live blog here Sign up here for email updates See all of the Grand Prix winners here Six years later, AI is one of the hottest topics in advertising and beyond, and Publicis wants to have the last laugh. It is running an outdoor ad campaign at the festival reminding Cannes-goers of its prescient decision. The ads, scattered around the Croisette, include AI-generated images of people with exaggerated expressions of laughter and shock to simulate the reactions people had to its Marcel announcement six years ago. One ad includes the picture of a person on a yacht laughing with text that reads: “/imagine prompt: Ad executive in Cannes reacting to the launch of Marcel, Publicis’ AI tool, back in 2017.” Another ad shows a person with a look of concerned shock and reads: “/imagine prompt: Analyst wondering why Publicis is investing in Marcel and AI back in 2017.” The punch line on both: “Is it OK to talk about AI in Cannes now?” The campaign was created by Publicis Conseil and led by Marco Venturelli, the chief creative officer of Publicis Groupe France and CEO and chief creative officer of Publicis Conseil. The original images created from the prompt, using Midjourney, used keywords such as “shock” and “surprise” and were “pretty close” to what Venturelli sought, he said. ‘AI craze’ “We’re living in an AI craze [right now] and I got to say, having launched [Marcel] six years ago, there's a part of me that's like, ‘Oh my God, we've been talking about this for six years and you guys are finally on the boat,’” Serrano said. Several executives such as Mark Read, CEO of WPP, and S4 Capital founder Martin Sorrell are slated to discuss AI topics at the Palais this week. Executives from Google also will speak on an AI-related panel. Creatives have predicted some AI campaigns will be contenders for Cannes Lions awards this year. More news: AI will replace over 30,000 ad agency jobs, report says Other agencies and holding companies have also made significant investments in AI. WPP recently struck a deal with Nvidia to launch a generative AI ad platform. Five years ago, Omnicom launched Omni, an AI data platform that has become a cornerstone of its business. Omnicom also recently entered into a partnership with Adobe that gives it early access to Adobe’s AI products Firefly and Sensei GenAI. IPG’s Huge recently announced that it is pivoting its business using a new set of AI tools. Agencies including Supernatural, Pereira O’Dell and Dept have also been launching their own AI practices. Earlier this year, Stagwell launched an AI-based PR agency called PRophet. AI marketing blog How brands are using ChatGPT, DALL-E 2 and other tools Read more here PublicisGPT Publicis recently created an AI tool system called PublicisGPT which acts as a one-stop location for the holding company’s employees to access different AI tools such as OpenAI, Microsoft, Google and Adobe. “Instead of going on your own on ChatGPT, for instance, you go on Sandbox [the system in which multiple tools can exist] and you have all the tools that are housed there and you can work them to what you're trying to solve,” Publicis Groupe Chief Talent Officer Emmanuel André said. Marcel continues to be used as a talent platform in which employees are able to collaborate, schedule courses to learn new skills, locate jobs and find insights for clients through data that sits within the platform. Managers can staff projects through the platform. Employees have profiles within the system that include attributes such as topics they are passionate about and side hustles. “A lot of the time when we're staffing for things, it's sort of like, ‘Hey, I want to [find] somebody that's a data analyst that can do this kind of coding, but is passionate about soccer,’ and then all of a sudden [Marcel shows] the right person to put on a certain project,” Serrano said. Employees are also able to access the Work Your World program, which allows them to work from anywhere globally for six weeks, and the Working with Cancer Hub, which offers resources, manager training and access to “CareBNB," which allows employees to share their property with cancer patients in treatment or who need to travel.

Publicis Groupe claps back at its Marcel AI critics with Cannes campaign

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