Discover the value of empowering
every employee with AI
Abstract AI Business School
Publicis Groupe is facing new and strong competition as its industry
evolves and requires new skills. Radical and innovative solutions are
Define an AI strategy
required to stay ahead of the curve and attract both clients and new to create business value
talent. Founded in 1926, the venerable advertising, media, and
Discover the value of
consulting network – one of the world’s largest – found that their
empowering every
existing processes kept technology, information, and personnel employee with AI
structured in silos, which made it more difficult to execute projects
quickly, provide value to customers, and keep ahead of competitors. I. Case study
introduction
Their recently appointed Chairman and CEO, Arthur Sadoun,
proposed a remarkable strategic evolution: using a platform powered II. Case study
resolution
by AI to “break the silos,” and connect every Publicis Groupe
employee together where they could provide the most value. To do
this, they created a platform called Marcel, named after founder Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, which uses AI to
structure Publicis Groupe’s vast treasure-trove of institutional knowledge and make it available, useful, and
relevant to every employee.
Industry context
Publicis Groupe is one of the “Big Four” multinational advertising and public relations agencies. Publicis is a
global leader in marketing, communications, and digital transformation, and its network contains some of the
best-known names in communications and media, including Leo Burnett Worldwide, Publicis Worldwide,
Saatchi & Saatchi, Zenith, Starcom, and more recently Sapient in the consulting space. With over 80,000
employees spanning 200 specialties over 130 countries, thousands of clients, and an almost hundred-year
history, Publicis Groupe is one of the largest and oldest companies of its type in the world.
Age brings challenges as well as experience. In recent years, the agency model has stagnated. Established
agencies have struggled to offer satisfying solutions to their clients in the face of massive technological
change, the mass adoption of online advertising, and small, nimble competitors.
Publicis Groupe Income
10
6
Billion €
0
2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011
-2
Group net income Digital revenue Total revenue
Agencies face the same problem as many old-media companies: diminishing income and relevance.
Advertisers have flocked to convenient, highly targeted, and quantifiable online advertising models offered by
companies like Google and Facebook. These search and social media platforms are accessible, fast, and often
target customers through data analytics and AI. Agencies, on the other hand, have high overhead costs and a
far higher price point.
“This is a race. It’s a race to be relevant,” Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun told the Financial Times in June 2017.
“The big difference between today and yesterday is speed. You need to be much faster on the execution.”
Challenge
Despite competition from new market players, agencies retain huge value in that they have the institutional
knowledge and resources to create engaging, emotive, and meaningful campaigns that can make a huge
difference to public perception of a brand or product at scale. But here another problem presents itself, which
is especially present in older agencies like Publicis Groupe: silos.
In pre-digital days, silos were present out of organizational necessity. The informational hierarchy created by
silos meant the knowledge they contained could be given order and structure. Today, thanks to digital
disruption and the hugely increased speed of information, silos hamper growth and communication instead.
What’s more, as siloed companies have digitized, the data and institutional knowledge they contain has
typically become more fragmented and disorganized.
For Publicis Groupe, which owns multiple different agencies, each with their own divisions and internal
knowledge silos, this meant that knowledge was frequently inaccessible, lost, or duplicative. Despite the huge
expertise of the company as a whole, its individual agencies lacked access to the full resources and best
thinking of the company.
When Arthur Sadoun took charge of Publicis, becoming its third leader ever over 91 years of existence, he had
one objective in mind: making it possible to execute projects more quickly than ever by breaking down the
company’s knowledge and personnel silos and creating an environment where everyone had immediate
access to the information they needed.
But with over 80,000 employees in dozens of different organisations spanning over 100 countries, this was
much easier said than done.
Strategy questions
1. What are Publicis’ unique strengths and capabilities that a solution should leverage?
2. For businesses to be efficient, they need stakeholders to have access the right information, at the right
time. In a world drowning in data, how should Publicis approach providing its wealth of information to
employees, without generating more surplus data and information?
3. The five characteristics of high-quality information are: that it is accurate, complete, consistent,
unique, and timely. How should Publicis ensure the information they provide employees meets this
standard?
4. When a project needs fresh advice, experience, or technical know-how, how can employees in a large
organisation find the right colleague to help?
5. Strategically, how should this be approached so that the well-meaning (but ultimately damaging)
habits of some managers to keep their groups exclusive and inward-looking is bypassed?
6. How could Publicis ensure a high probability of internal uptake of a solution? How could this be
measured?
2
Next step
Now that you’ve gained context on the challenges Publicis faces today and considered critical questions to
answer before implementing AI you can move on to the case study resolution.
