Publicis Groupe Unveils Marcel Named after Its Founder

Marcel to accelerate the transformation of Publicis Groupe from a holding company to an 80,000-person enterprise platform

Publicis Groupe today unveiled Marcel—named after founder Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet—an AI-powered innovation that will accelerate transforming the organisation from a holding company to a platform, creating the first truly borderless, frictionless enterprise workforce, comprised of 80,000 employees worldwide, and usher in a new era of creativity and innovation.

Arthur Sadoun, Chairman & CEO, Publicis Groupe, said: “In June last year, Publicis Groupe announced the creation of Marcel, to connect our 80,000 employees and completely reinvent the way that we work, for ourselves and our clients.

“Since then, our industry has gone through unprecedented challenges, demonstrating that incremental change is not a solution. The need for reinvention is stronger than ever.
At this agency, we haven’t waited to act. We have broken the divide between data, creativity and technology. We have broken our silos through the Power of One. Today, we are breaking the barriers between talent and opportunity with Marcel.

“Marcel is the proof of our commitment to our clients. They will be able to leverage our incredible diversity of talent to bring to life the ideas they need to grow their business.
And, of course, Marcel is the proof of our commitment to our industry. We will be a force for good, by leading the change.”

The bold ambition to transform into a platform required that the Groupe take on very significant enterprise business challenges. One important challenge is around data. With more than 80,000 people and over 1,200 entities, spanning 200 specialities and thousands of clients, the Groupe has vast amounts of data. The Groupe estimates well more than five billion data files.

In order to unlock the value of this data, the Groupe created the Marcel AI Platform built on Microsoft AI and Knowledge Graph technologies. This Knowledge Graph connects both structured and unstructured data that exist across the organisation and then maps relationships within it. This centralised, integrated source of our own data will power Marcel as well as other enterprise initiatives. The Groupe will use Microsoft’s sophisticated AI tools to process, filter, connect and organise the data to make it useful for its people. Improving the Marcel AI Platform will be an ongoing effort, foundational to transforming the Groupe in to a platform.

The creation of Marcel has been a truly transformative initiative in support of Power of One, with technology and consulting arm Publicis.Sapient developing the Marcel user design and experience to build the Marcel platform. Publicis Communications’ BBH (Bartle Bogle Hegarty) created Marcel’s brand identity.

The Groupe found in Microsoft a partner with a shared vision to empower every employee with knowledge and the innovation to make the Marcel experience best in class. Microsoft AI is being used to power the knowledge graph behind Marcel, and the conversational AI experience that is bringing this knowledge to every employee.

Microsoft’s deep technical knowledge and industry-leading cloud capabilities including Azure and Office 365 made them the ideal partner.

As part of Marcel’s power of knowledge proposition, the Groupe has entered into a partnership with the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity to access The Work, a unique digital platform that showcases over 200,000 pieces of award-winning creative work from 2001-2018.

There will be multiple, updated versions until the optimal state-of-the-art product developed for rollout to the entire Groupe. The Groupe will begin Marcel rollout to 80,000-person workforce in January 2019.