Credit: Miguel Teirlinck via Unsplash
Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun has a keen focus when he buys a business; he takes aim at silos and the bozos running them.
He said the transformation of Publicis had been “painful” as the global advertising company integrated the companies and data it needed to change.
The mantra was: ”No silos, no solos, no bozos.”
“We fired all the bozos,” he said. “And we break down the P/L barrier and truly integrate data and technology into our media and creative, which means that they are AI proof today.”
He was speaking at an investor day conference in the US organised by Bank of America.
Sadoun, who now leads the world’s biggest advertising agency (soon to be overtaken when Omnicom takes over IPG), said he was not interested in consolidating more of the same type of business just for efficiencies.
This appears to rule out Publicis being a suitor for dentsu's international business, which the Japan-based advertising group is currently trying to work out what to do with.
“We are interested in buying capabilities that will continue to make us outperform the market and deliver what we believe is the best shareholder value of this industry by far,” he said
He said Publicis started playing with AI in 2017, almost 10 years ago.
“Now, thanks to that, we have built a unique model, and now our obsession is to make sure that we keep growing and keep innovating, to keep leading, thanks to smaller acquisitions that come and complement what we do,” he said.
“What we are looking is acquisition that brings us IPs, technology, people, that can accelerate our existing business.
“If they don't feel the right price, if they don't feel fit with that, we're not interested.”
Publicis last year acquired Influential, an influencer marketing company and AI-powered platform serving more than 300 brands.
The business is said to be the largest influencer marketing company in the world by revenue and has a network of more than 3.5 million creators, including access to and data on 90% of global influencers with 1 million plus followers.
“And so if you take the last big thing we did, which is all Influencer, I don't even know where to start, there is the excitement and the interest we got from our clients when we told them,” Sadoun said
“Thanks to the AI platform we have bought and the 15 million influencers we've got that we can connect to identities.
“We're able basically to get to the reach of the Super Bowl for a 10th of the price. And by the way, know exactly to who you talk and can measure that. This is invaluable.
“I'm not even that interested about the fact that we are going to double our acquisition in terms of revenue this year. The impact it's having on the rest of the business is way more important.
“We would not win all the pitches we're winning if we didn't have that. And I'm obsessed by that.”
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