“After two years of double-digit organic growth, we are having a very good start to the year 2023 despite the fragile macroeconomic context”, comments Le Figaro Arthur Sadoun, chairman of the management board of Publicis. The French communication group (Publicis, Leo Burnett, Saatchi
In the United States, Publicis’ largest market, growth reached 5.7%. It stands in Europe at 12.3%. More than a third of the group’s income now comes from its data-related activities, with Epsilon (10% growth over one year) and in consulting and technology, with Sapient (11%). This allows it to be less dependent on the expenses of advertisers in traditional communication. Over the first three months of the year, the group has indeed noted a slight slowdown in this market, with “localized cuts”.
“Our mix of activities allows us to position ourselves with our clients, well beyond the traditional services of a communication agency”, explains Arthur Sadoun. “As a partner in the business model transformation of companies, particularly in proprietary data and e-commerce”.
Faced with geopolitical uncertainties, the rise in interest rates and the tension in the banking system, Publicis nevertheless remains cautious. “Some companies prefer to wait a little before launching new transformation projects, slips the leader. But we know that in the end, in the years to come, there will not be a company that will not have to accelerate its transformation to adapt to new developments”. In a world post-third-party advertising cookies (these small tracers capable of tracking the activity of an Internet user online), customers are looking for large-scale personalization, for example, to resist the era of platform domination. Mastery of “logged” (or proprietary) data is becoming a holy grail for site editors and advertisers.
For the year 2023, Publicis maintains its growth objective between 3% and 5%. Its operating margin is expected between 17.5% and 18%, and its free cash flow at 1.6 billion euros. It also intends to continue its policy of “small strategic and targeted acquisitions”, in order to recover both technology and talent. The group provides for this purpose a budget of 600 million euros. Last March, for example, he got his hands on the Practia company in Latin America.
In the coming months, Publicis also intends to take advantage of the multiple opportunities offered by artificial intelligence for its activities. “Last year, we had already set up a partnership with the company OpenIA (NB: at the origin in particular of ChatGTP) to accelerate the personalization of content on the basis of a single idea”, explains Arthur Sadoun. He highlights the presence within Publicis of 30,000 engineers, data and technology experts, at a time when communication groups are struggling to attract this type of profile.
“This competitive advantage has already enabled us to put AI at the heart of our operational model with our Marcel platform, which we launched in 2017 and serve our customers in all our businesses”, concludes the Chairman of the Management Board. The challenge now for Publicis will be to extend the use of these tools to all teams.
