Publicis CEO Maurice Lévy moves to quell fears that Publicis-Omnicom merger will stifle creativity

“When it comes to creativity, we need to give a lot of freedom to agencies without the constraints we need when we have scale.”

He told attendees the merger was necessary to remain competitive in the digital landscape, where scale is paramount to success.

The massive merger, worth an estimated $35bn, will create the world’s biggest advertising corporation and, according to Lévy, a necessity for scale is what brought the two companies together.

“We have done this merger because when it comes to digital it’s all about scale, it’s enormously important,” he said. “When you think about the future and think about data it’s clear that scale will be tremendously important criteria and if you don’t have scale you will not be able to invest properly.”

Lévy added that digital had changed the objectives of the advertising industry from more unmeasured brand-building exercises to specific and trackable aims, with a quarter of a campaign’s work now focusing on the tech side of an advertising campaign and e-commerce.

“When we want to extract the right target we have to crunch zillions of digits, zillions of information, just to extract the right information, making sure the message is going to the right person,” he said. “It’s much more difficult when you’re dealing with advertising.

“In the good old days when we did not have to connect advertising with digital, the fact that we were not reaching the right target was sometimes very positive because we were adding to the brand by generating an aura effect.

“The image of the brand was extremely important. Funnily enough, the more people you had who knew about your brand that were not in your target group, the more value your brand had.”

He added: “When it comes to digital, you don’t need that luxury, what you need is another luxury, which is to target the right person and make sure they act immediately, and if you don’t you may lose him or her.”

Lévy said clients had reacted “enthusiastically” to news of the merger from “day one”, and he doesn’t expect to have any problems as the merger proceeds. The companies have created 73 “integration groups” in areas such as accounting, IT, HR and training to ensure a smooth transition, although he stipulated that competition rules meant conversation on a range of issues were still restricted.

On his relationship with future co-CEO John Wren, Lévy admitted sharing power would be a challenge.

“We have different points of view and come from different places, but we have the same ambition and we have decided we will be working together.

“I’m not afraid of the issues because despite the fact we have egos number two and three on the advertising planet,” he quipped, “we are coming to a point where we have achieved most of the goals we have, and we have a very strong, successful career behind us.

“I think it will be challenging, but we know this, we know it will not be easy but at the same time we have huge respect for each other. It’s a merger of equals.”

Lévy said the companies now have 14 out of the required 15 judicial agreements to go ahead. They’re still waiting on the green light from China, which he said had been expected before the Chinese New Year, but is now expected within the next five weeks.

When questioned on the privacy implications of the companies’ investment into scale and measurement, Lévy said strict French regulations on privacy had allowed Publicis to learn methods of extracting and using information in non-invasive ways. When it came to knowing the public’s private information, Lévy joked: “We leave this to the NSA.”