MUMBAI: If your campaign doesn’t make you squirm a little, you’re probably doing it wrong. That was the bold takeaway from Paris-based creative powerhouse Marcel CCO & CEO Youri Guerassimov who took the Goa Fest 2025 stage with a keynote titled Creativity That Dares to Disrupt.
In an age where consumers are bombarded with over 6,000 ads a day, Guerassimov made a case for courage over comfort. “Visibility is not enough,” he said. “To stand out, you have to stand for something.”
And the numbers agree. According to Edelman, 86 per cent of consumers expect brands to take a stand on social or environmental issues. Two-thirds (66 per cent) are even willing to switch loyalties if a brand stays silent on values that matter. In short: if you’re not bold, you’re forgettable.
Guerassimov pointed to iconic examples of brand bravery from Nike’s controversial Colin Kaepernick campaign to Volvo’s decision to open-source their safety innovations. Whether it’s risking backlash or sharing competitive advantage, these brands chose purpose over polish and won loyalty in the process.
But bravery, he clarified, isn’t just activism. “It can be design-led, strategic, or operational.” Take McDonald’s minimal outdoor ad that simply showed its fries arches pointing to the nearest outlet. Or Marcel’s own work with Intermarché, turning ugly produce into a national movement with the “Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables” campaign.
Some acts of courage are barely visible like adding a few meaningful words to a supplier contract. But when done with conviction, even the smallest gestures echo the brand’s beliefs. “True bravery can show up in backrooms and boardrooms,” he said.
He also highlighted Patagonia’s radical profit pledge, where the brand’s CEO donated all company profits to fight climate change, as the ultimate example of purpose-driven marketing that became part of global culture.
According to Guerassimov, bravery is not about budget or bravado, it’s about belief. It’s a tool to cut through the noise, create culture, and connect with consumers on a level that spreadsheets can’t quantify.
As he put it with disarming simplicity, “Fear is temporary. Regret is forever.”
So the next time a campaign idea gives you a nervous twitch, take it as a sign you might be on the right track.
Mumbai: Publicis Group has announced ‘Work Your World,’ a global employee-first programme that will allow every employee of the company to work from any accessible country where the group is present, for up to six weeks a year, starting from January 2022.
“We have been working hard on how to turn the hybrid world into new opportunities for everyone at Publicis, and make the future of work more creative and more daring,” said Publicis Groupe global chairman and CEO Arthur Sadoun, adding, “We know the pandemic isn’t over, and we know that the world could close again at any time. But that’s not a reason to close our horizons and perspectives. We will continue to move forward, because one day this crisis will come to an end and because we owe it to our people to make their professional and personal experience at Publicis truly unique.”
Through this initiative that draws on the group’s heritage and values like ‘Viva La Difference,’ every employee will have the chance to access the program and experience other offices, cultures and lifestyles, via its collaborative community, said the company. It will be sharing more details on ‘Work Your World’ at the group’s second Viva La Différence seminar on its AI platform in December, it further said.
“Our people have been incredibly resourceful despite the limitations of the pandemic. They deserve to work for a company as resourceful as they are. Work Your World can help every Publicis employee ‘work their world’ in a bigger, better and brighter way thanks to our scale, diversity and Marcel,” said Publicis Groupe global CSO Carla Serrano.
Through the landing page on Marcel- its custom-made AI platform, employees will be able to: Browse local and global destinations, in over 100 countries where Publicis has offices and see dynamic updates on accessible countries and locations, with information on local health and business regulations, to take the necessary measures and precautions before travel.
In a future-facing initiative, the employees would also be able to find accommodation through a feature open to the Publicis community called Home Swap Home that enables them to share and swap accommodation with colleagues.
Additionally, they can connect with other employees in different countries, via Marcel’s profile intelligence, to discover what it’s like to live and work in a given location, and access a dedicated 24-hour contact center, to receive real-time support from experts for questions related to travel, health regulations, visas, and work permits.
MUMBAI: Publicis Groupe announced in June 2017 that it would shift its promotional budget away from industry events and awards shows until 1 July, 2018 in order to focus on the development of its Marcel platform. The Groupe’s policy has been scrupulously followed throughout the year.
Barring one exception, the Publicis Groupe had no entry at this year’s Cannes Lions festival,
In support of creative excellence and out of respect for the company’s decision, some of the Groupe’s clients and partners have taken on the cost of entering what they consider to be award-worthy campaigns developed by Publicis Groupe agencies. There are 399 such campaigns as of 9 June.
The only exception to this is BBH London’s “3 Billboards” campaign for Justice4Grenfell, the organisation trying to get justice for the victims of the 2017 Grenfell Tower disaster in London.
Publicis Groupe chairman and CEO Arthur Sadoun says, “Twelve months ago, we took the decision to pause our investment in promotional industry events for one year. It was a difficult but necessary sacrifice at a moment when our industry is in need of radical change. It gave us the means, the focus, and perhaps more importantly, the sense of urgency, to reinvent the way we work and start building Marcel.”
12 Publicis Groupe leaders have been invited to attend the Festival as Jury Presidents or as part of the awarding juries. 12 additional Publicis Groupe leaders are members of the shortlist juries and will not be attending the Festival. 25 Publicis Groupe employees have been invited to attend Cannes Lions by their clients and by other industry partners. 15 Publicis Groupe employees have decided to attend the Festival by personally funding their trip. 20 Publicis Groupe account leaders will be participating in key client meetings taking place in Cannes-not attending the Festival. Their presence will be funded by Publicis Groupe.
“And of course, a big big merci goes to all of our people. The Groupe’s creative community has had to shoulder much of the weight of our decision to pause our promotions this year, and they have been outstanding during this period, which will come to an end on 1 July,” Sadoun adds.
At the invitation of the Festival, Publicis Groupe will present Marcel on Tuesday 19 June at 3:00 PM CET on the main stage of the Palais des Festivals.
Carla Serrano, Chief Strategy Officer of Publicis Groupe, Nick Law, Chief Creative Officer of Publicis Groupe and President of Publicis Communications and Arthur Sadoun, Chairman & CEO of Publicis Groupe will present a beta version and discuss why it’s an important part of the company’s future.
MUMBAI: Publicis Groupe has unveiled Marcel – named after Publicis Groupe founder Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet – an AI-powered innovation that will accelerate transforming the organisation from a holding company to a platform, creating the first truly borderless, frictionless enterprise workforce, comprised of 80,000 employees worldwide, and usher in a new era of creativity and innovation.
Publicis Groupe chairman and CEO Arthur Sadoun says,“In June last year, Publicis Groupe announced the creation of Marcel, to connect our 80,000 employees and completely reinvent the way that we work, for ourselves and our clients. Since then, our industry has gone through unprecedented challenges, demonstrating that incremental change is not a solution. The need for reinvention is stronger than ever.”
Marcel is a journey to shift Publicis Groupe from a holding company to a platform and give creative minds the freedom to progress and thrive in this ever-changing industry. With Marcel, clients will be able to leverage the incredible diversity of talent to bring to life the ideas they need to grow their business.
The company says that tying the development of Marcel to its one-year industry event hiatus was a controversial decision, but a necessary one. It drew a line in the sand and showed its determined to do whatever it takes to reinvent an industry that has struggled to evolve over the past 40 years.
In a world where people no longer want to work for companies and instead expect companies to work for them, Marcel is the first enterprise platform designed with people-first benefits and experiences in mind. At its core, Marcel is about empowering every single Publicis employee to the power of 80,000. Founded in a belief that an augmented workforce leads to higher engagement, which in turn leads to better work and results for clients, Marcel is built on the foundation of four key pillars: knowledge, connectivity, opportunity and productivity.
The bold ambition to transform Publicis Groupe into a platform required that the Groupe take on very significant enterprise business challenges. One important challenge is around data. With more than 80,000 people and over 1,200 entities, spanning 200 specialities and thousands of clients, the Groupe has vast amounts of data. Publicis Groupe estimates well more than five billion data files.
In order to unlock the value of this data, the Groupe created the Marcel AI Platform built on Microsoft AI and knowledge graph technologies. This knowledge graph connects both structured and unstructured data that exist across the organisation and then maps relationships within it. This centralised, integrated source of data will power Marcel as well as other enterprise initiatives. The group will use Microsoft’s sophisticated AI tools to process, filter, connect and organise the data to make it useful for its people.
As a part of Marcel’s power of knowledge proposition, Publicis Groupe has entered into a partnership with the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity to access The Work, a unique digital platform that showcases over 200,000 pieces of award-winning creative work from 2001-2018.
Built for today’s technology-savvy workforce, Marcel is launching as a mobile application for both Android and iOS. Future versions will include a desktop version or other interfaces as the need arises.
Designed to be as user-friendly as any consumer app, employees can use Marcel through voice or text input. The AI engine will suggest refinements to queries that provide large returns to help someone rapidly make connections and complete goals. Marcel will do more than respond to requests. It will also proactively present relevant knowledge, connections and opportunities. Each workday, Marcel will serve six prompts tailored to the person’s role and interests in the form of a daily digest. Marcel will refine what it presents each day based on an employee’s interaction and feedback.
Today, Marcel is tested by a team of 100 alpha users. In June, Publicis will release a beta version to 1000 people selected as an exact Publicis Groupe representation, by agency, role and geography. This group will provide feedback that will help refine the app. It wants to reach 90 per cent of its people by 2020.
This beta phase will include a precise on-boarding process defined to ensure beta user profiles are complete, a training module available to get the individual familiar with the Marcel platform and a feedback function included for employees to provide real-time feedback.
The aim of this real-time exercise will allow Publicis Groupe to refine the app constantly, course correct as needed, improve the user’s experience and add functionality along the way.
There will be multiple, updated versions until the optimal state-of-the-art product developed for rollout to the entire Publicis Groupe. Publicis Groupe will begin Marcel rollout to the 80,000-person workforce in January 2019.
