'Our clients have been championing creativity' - Arthur Sadoun on winning a Titanium Lion
Despite having withdrawn from entering Cannes Lions in 2018, Publicis Groupe has won a Grand Prix in Media for Tesco, one Grand Prix in Film for Tide and a Titanium Lion, also for Tide.
Publicis Groupe has won a Titanium Lion for its work for Tide.
Publicis has said it has used the money saved from entering the awards to fund the building of its artificial intelligence platform Marcel, which was unveiled in Paris last month and is set to be adopted by the company early next year.
Despite the withdrawal, the company still produced a strong showing, with its clients said to have entered work to the festival instead. Publicis Groupe chief executive Arthur Sadoun claimed it showed their support for the creative sector.
“It has been a very special year for us but our clients have made the demonstration that they are championing creativity in Cannes. This is for us, an incredibly strong statement,” he told The Drum.
“For the agency/client relationship, it means a lot. We are not the ones who asked them to send the work – they said ‘we want to support you and we believe in the work you have put together and we will send it.’ It shows that the creative product is very strong and second it shows that our clients are championing creativity. They are the ones who put that forward – it is impressive to see the kind of brands who are winning; from Audi, British Airways, Carrefour, Diesel, Ikea, McDonald’s, P&G, Tesco and Toyota.”
He reiterated his previously stated belief that “creative needs to be judged” and added that the decision to withdraw for a year was not intended as a challenge to the festival.
“When you take only what matters, the big ideas from big clients, we can thrive, thanks to our clients, in a way that is quite exceptional. We want to follow this in the year to come. We will take a lesson from what we have witnessed this year, which is that we have incredible support from our clients, that they are willing to champion creativity, and that we can demonstrate that we know how to build brands' creativity and then judge it compared to the rest of the market.”
In the end, Publicis Groupe had just under 400 award entries and took 86 members of staff to the event through client and the event organiser invites. However, it did enter one campaign; BBH London’s ‘3 Billboards’ campaign, for Justice4Grenfell, because it was “proud to support this cause and creativity for good”.
Also attending to host an event on the main stage in Le Palais were Sadoun, new chief creative officer Nick Law and chief strategy officer Carla Serrano.
Of the impact of Law’s move to Publicis Group, he claimed it had an ’instant effect’ on the business.
“The same day we announced he was joining our business changed internally as people realised that Publicis could attract those considered the best creatives. We have demonstrated the effectiveness of our model but we have also made the commitment to creativity, because everyone can talk about creativity but you have to do creativity. What we have done with Nick is to give him big power and authority through the entire group – he is someone who lives and breathes creativity and had an immediate impact on the organisation. He was present at the launch of Marcel where everyone could see what he was bringing, and now after a month it has been an incredible journey. We have been extremely lucky that he has been able to join and he is an amazing partner.”
See all the Titanium Lions winners here. To see the rest of The Drum's coverage of this year's Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, click here.