Publicis' Bertelli on the Importance of Taking a Breather

When I started at Publicis Worldwide, my ambition was to make the network more successful creatively. I guess every global CCO starts with such an aim.

But creative success on its own is not enough. We needed to prove that creativity sells. I wanted our best work to come out of our biggest clients, instead of focussing our creative energy on pro bono work. Given that charities have less accountability to shareholder value on their brands, clients have less to lose with high risk creativity. It just gets too easy to do great work when risk is not the guiding business factor. But when we honour pro bono work as the most successful campaigns our industry is producing, we are not doing ourselves any favours.

Winning awards on big brands not only allows us to create a stronger link between creativity and results, it also makes a much better new business pitch. And so I launched a global programme called 3+1, with the aim of getting all Publicis agencies to focus our best talent on achieving the optimum creative and effectiveness for our clients. We focussed the best talent and most resources on an agency’s three biggest clients, with one fun/local client to offer balance. It was a tough call, but our 2017 Cannes results have proven the strategy to be right, winning more awards overall. And, more importantly, more awards for our global clients.

The Publicis Groupe decision to take a pause in investing in awards and festivals came as a shock to many and, at the time, my initial reaction was that it wouldn’t help in my pursuit for changing our creative mindset. But not entering any awards has actually been a massive opportunity to change our business mindset. The breather allows us to rethink and reorganise ourselves. 

We spend more time now adjusting creative strategies to make them more suitable for advanced business objectives. We put collaborative work streams into action with data at the core. And we experiment with how creativity can be the guiding principle in a data-driven consumer journey.

Our industry is changing at a truly mind-blowing speed. In this environment it’s essential for us to take some time to focus on the future. My aim is to get Publicis Worldwide ready to embrace our talent from different backgrounds and business disciplines across the Groupe, united in one results-oriented, seamless working process, with creativity at the core. 

I think we’re already in fairly good shape strategically. What we’re missing is creative rigour throughout the process. And the best way of getting there may not be by repeating previous behaviours, but by focussing on the things we haven’t tried before.

Today, more than ever, we have to demonstrate how our industry creates business value. Winning creative awards has to become a metaphor for effectiveness. We need it to be a metaphor for work that solves business problems.