(The convictions of …) Pierre Calmard, President of Dentsu France – Convictions Media > Emarketing TV

Dentsu France has become a mission-driven company with the ambition of “choosing to design communication as a vector of social and environmental harmony”. The explanations and vision of the challenges ahead are put into perspective by the president of Dentsu France in this Convictions Média broadcast.

As a preamble, can you introduce the Dentsu group to us and detail your major current news?

Dentsu is one of the “Big 5 to 6” of the major global communications groups. The group represents 70,000 people worldwide. It is a very multicultural group, since there is a brand born in France which is Carat, which everyone knows, the media agency which ultimately created this activity. And then there was a very significant development in the Anglo-Saxon countries with the acquisition by Aegis of the structure at the end of the 20th century. Dentsu has therefore reintegrated all of these entities for about ten years. We have a culture which is at the same time French, Japanese, Anglo-Saxon, this is what makes this group rich.

What is your vision of the revolution underway with AI?

I am a big fan of science fiction, so AI has been a topic of interest to me for a very long time. It is true that we are at a bit of a turning point because AI is finally going to become operational for our professions and in different dimensions. Broadly speaking, for me, there are two main types of dimensions. On the one hand, there is efficiency, that is to say making tasks that were previously or still today a bit repetitive, tedious, much more automatic, much more effective. This is good because it allows us to refocus on what makes the added value of our teams, namely advice, reflection and creativity. And then, there is also a part that I would rather call assistance with creation. I do not believe at all today that AI is creative in itself. On the other hand, it provides tools to creative people that allow them to go further, to be more efficient, faster and to generate different ideas. We are therefore in a logic of strong integration.

The more consciousness is aided by external tools, whether they are very mechanical or today much more technological, the more we can give birth to new ideas. And so AI is exactly that, it is a kind of potential abundance in which the human brain will make correlations and actually produce true creativity.

Within Dentsu Creative France, you created Dojo, an event dedicated to artificial intelligence. What is it about?

Indeed, it is a big first in France and it is a great success and I thank the teams because we have done a lot of work. What is interesting is to see precisely very concretely how artificial intelligence could transform our businesses. Because it is true that all our customers, but I believe that this is the case on the market everywhere, are asking questions. In the field of communication, we already have use cases that are ready, that exist, and so it was interesting to take our customers, to train them, that is to say to show them how we could use these tools and to show very specific use cases applied to our businesses that save a lot of time, to be more efficient and more relevant in our communication.

You have been part of the digital revolution from the very beginning. What is your deep DNA at Dentsu?

Gilbert Gross (founder of Carat in 1968, Editor’s note), if we go back to the great illustrious elders, was known for being a poker player but above all someone very innovative, who disrupted an industry. Innovation is the key word of the Dentsu group.

In Cannes, Dentsu Monde revealed its new baseline which is precisely “innovating to impact”. No need to translate, I think it’s quite easy to understand. Innovation is also at the heart of Dentsu’s project in the world, with this very Japanese vision of innovation, on robotics. The group’s DNA is really turned towards the future and innovation. The second very important dimension is harmony. Harmony is the concept on which I tried to rebuild Dentsu post-Covid, in France. It is also a cardinal value of Japanese culture. There is a great convergence finally between the project that I wanted to lead in France and the DNA of Dentsu Monde and that is why I had an unreserved agreement to become a mission-driven company, to change everything in France for three years and I think we did it successfully!

What is the mission you have given yourself?

It is a magnificent mission. And I would like to thank the 200 people at Dentsu France who participated in writing this sentence. It is not just a sentence, there are many elements behind it: “Choosing to design communication as a vector of social and environmental harmony”. Each word is important because from the moment we “choose”, we feel that it is a choice, therefore something we are committed to.

What is your view on the digital industry at a time when digital marketing must learn to operate with consent that is increasingly difficult to obtain by doing without cookies?

Personally, I think that this cookie story is absurd, but it is not the only one. I think we are completely missing the point of the debate. I say it a little violently, but it is my conviction. Marketing, in any case, whether we like it or not, will become more and more personalized, in the precise sense of the term. We will try to “targue”, as we say in our jargon, to target populations in an increasingly precise way. And we see it not only on all digital, but also on traditional media. Segmented TV is arriving and coming into being. Television is becoming a platform. All this data will allow us to be more and more precise in targeting. I see this, unlike a certain number of players, as a great strength.

Personalization is the future of all media everywhere in the world, not just in France.

What challenges does the media buying market face in this era of audience fragmentation?

Indeed, the main challenge is indeed this fragmentation and especially the ability to address each audience in an ultra-relevant way in relation to the message that we want to convey. The whole data, AI, etc. part is absolutely fundamental. And we can see it in the figures since the global advertising market is doing rather well, and is doing better than global growth. In France, the best forecasts give a growth of approximately 4% of the advertising market, which is much better than GDP growth.

The real hidden issue of this market, if we take a step back, beyond the figures, lies in its globalization. Platforms, particularly American, or Chinese or others, are in the process of taking over national media by a large margin. They are growing faster than the market, so the others are rather in decline. And the French legislator has absolutely not taken the measure of what is happening. We are in a legislative ecosystem that dates back to the 20th century, which, for me, is completely “has been”, defended by people who do not know exactly what they are talking about and who think they are draped in a form of virtue, in perfect transparency, while this transparency is leading us to decline. It is absolutely dramatic. I will take a very simple case. The Sapin law came in 92-93, the year I started working. It was certainly extremely useful at the time, because there was a lot of abuse, but today, it is deadly for national media. And I say it very clearly, how can a TF1, I take this example, be in competition with a Netflix or an Amazon when these big platforms today sign with advertisers or agencies, global deals that they sign in New York or Tokyo or I don’t know where… – Knowing that obviously, we can say “yes but in France we can’t”, there is the Sapin law etc.

Today, the ecosystem is becoming globalized, whether we like it or not, and keeping purely French-French legislation that is punitive for everyone is an aberration. This is one of the reasons, for example, why in many other countries, the price of media has evolved with inflation and ultimately, the media ecosystem has also managed to increase its prices because its production costs are increasing.

While in France, it is almost impossible. The system is blocked by a legislative system that leads the entire industry to have absolute pressure on costs. From this point of view, we have a real French problem. It is a taboo subject. I am committed, as is often the case, to breaking all taboos. I find that this will be beneficial in the medium term for our media industry in France.

There are two campaigns that I really liked. One that just won a Grand Prix at Cannes, Dentsu Creative, a collaboration between Amsterdam and Paris, for a telephone operator that had the courage to tackle a difficult subject, that of harassment by social networks, etc. Everyone knows that it is a real problem today. The agency went to find a very well-known singer in Holland and a song was created.

I invite everyone to go see the film, because it is very well done. It is very clear. There is a real commitment from the operator. For me it is a magnificent campaign, because it is of public utility.

See the campaign here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC3184WBOWo

Another one in France that is perhaps more underground is about life-saving gestures deployed by Groupama. The idea is to invest in a media like Twitch, and video games, on an audience of young people aged 15-24. It’s true that we never die as much as in video games and we resurrect. The idea was therefore to hack these moments of resurrection to encourage life-saving gestures and in real life to have a logic of pseudo-resurrection. I find it interesting because effectively, for brands whose risk is to be disconnected from the new generation, it’s a way of getting back into a new ecosystem, and of bringing something very concrete for young people.

Last question, if you had one or two pieces of advice to give to the CMOs watching us, what would they be?

Perhaps two very quick pieces of advice. The first is to always think about your campaigns in terms of purpose and almost mission. Today, brands that do not follow this logic of seeking societal and environmental harmony run the risk of disconnecting themselves from the aspirations of their customers, their consumers. We must enter into this logic of giving meaning, it is absolutely fundamental. The second mini-tip is to insist on a point that has been somewhat lost, which is to make communication an investment factor again and not an expense item. Too often today, communication is seen either as a dancer at worst, or in any case not necessarily as a subject for the management committee. I think that this is heresy because more than ever, business is done through communication. Your income, your profits tomorrow depend on what you do in communication today.