Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Publicis Groupe S.A.
Arthur Sadoun, Chairman & CEO, presents Publicis Groupe's 1st Half 2017 Results
A FEW INTRODUCTORY WORDS ...
About Arthur Sadoun
In a March 2025 interview, Sadoun discussed the advertising industry's shift toward artificial intelligence and data, stating that "our biggest challenge is to take all these people into this new era of advertising dominated by artificial intelligence, by data where once again these great creative ideas remain at the heart but everything around these ideas has changed." He also described advertising as a "people business" and noted that the industry operates in a state of "permanent uncertainty," requiring agility and a clear compass. In a June 2020 message to Publicis employees, Sadoun addressed the killing of George Floyd and subsequent protests, saying "this is bigger and deeper than we think" and that "actions are more important than words." He called for the company to "imagine, design and execute new ways for Publicis to fight racism and create more opportunities for the black community." In a 2013 interview, Sadoun described the advertising business as one where "you are always two phone calls away from disaster," adding that he believes communicators are "the worst advisors for politicians."
Transcript (10 segments)
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Audrey0:01
Publicis Groupe, the world's third-largest advertising and communications group, just reported first-half results. Hello, Bordeaux, and it's a pleasure to be with you. Thank you very much. You are the new CEO of Publicis Groupe. You've been CEO for just seven weeks. It's the first opportunity to get to know you, so perhaps my first question is: could you introduce yourself and tell us about the transition and relationship with Maurice Lévy?
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Arthur Sadoun0:28
You're right, I've been CEO for seven weeks, a short period of time, but I've been with Publicis for more than 10 years. I actually started as CEO of Publicis Conseil, which is the agency that was founded by Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet. Then I took responsibility for France, then I took responsibility for Europe for Publicis Worldwide, and then I became CEO of Publicis for a while, four years ago. And 18 months ago, when we started the Power of One, I took responsibility for Publicis Communications, which is having under one roof all the creative agencies. When it comes to Maurice Lévy, I will choose maybe one word to qualify our relationship: it's trust. He knows that you can count on me to put Publicis, his people, his clients, and now shareholders as a first priority for me on a day-to-day basis, and I know that I can count on him. It has been the case for the last 10 years for whatever I need, whether it's day or night.
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Audrey1:29
You've just reported your first-half results. What are the highlights of these results quickly?
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Arthur Sadoun1:32
Quickly, the highlights: first of all, the revenue in H1 is just below five billion euros. The good news comes from Q2, where we are delivering a plus 0.8 percent, which is better than expected. It comes roughly from some clients in FMCG and auto that are performing better than expected, a bit of phasing, and we have also a few past issues that are lower than expected. What is good to see is that the US is coming back in the good area, being positive on Q2. Europe is still very strong. Then question comes on margin, where we are delivering a bit better than expected also at 13.2 percent, which is 20 basis points better than last year, with, as you know, gross that is not that high. So when you look at the reorganization we have put in place, it is starting to get traction, and we can qualify those results as satisfactory.
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Audrey2:31
How do you see organic growth developing in the second half of the year?
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Arthur Sadoun2:33
Organic growth in the second part of the year is our top priority. We need to improve for sure. If you look at the year, we started in Q1 with minus 1.2 percent, we went to Q2 at plus 0.8 percent. We need sequential growth improvement to continue, and we need to make sure that in H2 we are back to normal, roughly where our peers will be, beyond sequential growth.
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Audrey3:04
What is your plan as new CEO to boost growth going forward?
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Arthur Sadoun3:07
To boost the growth going forward, I think first it's important to remind our audience that we, with Maurice, with the executive committee, with the board, are very confident that we have the assets, we have the talents, and we have this new organization called the Power of One that is really gaining traction. And so the only question we should ask ourselves is how can we accelerate in the execution of the plan and go deeper in integration to really become the market leader when it comes to marketing and business transformation. And we have defined a set of concrete actions that will help us achieve this goal and find back the growth that we deserve.
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Audrey3:54
Could you give us some examples of what you plan to undertake as new CEO?
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Arthur Sadoun3:56
Oh, I can actually give you the four main actions that we're going to focus on for the next six months. First, we're going to make sure that we bring to all of our clients a unique model. We are the only company in the world that can bring marketing transformation and digital business transformation in an interconnected way to all of our clients, and this will be our first priority. Second, we have incredible expertise in technology, in consulting, and in data, and we will leverage it even better for the sake of all of our operations. Third, we need to be more competitive. We need to gain in terms of efficiencies, and for that we need to simplify our structure. We will break even more the silos at country level, and we will make sure that people are incentivized to work together. Last but not least, we have to design a culture that attracts and retains the best talent. This is what we will do through training, because we need to make sure that people are trained to the transformation we are in. We will use Marcel to make sure that people have more opportunity to create and get recognized, and finally we will hire a chief talent officer that will be responsible at top level for culture and talent. After all, I'm the newly appointed CEO of Publicis. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Audrey, and I'm sorry I haven't been as brilliant as Maurice, but the good news is I have been shorter.