← The CMO Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
Before we dive into today's episode, we would very much appreciate a moment from you to make sure you're subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen, along with optioning to auto download the episodes. It really is the best way to never miss an episode, along with supporting the show and the amazing team that helps me bring it to you. And while you're there, leave us a rating or review. It only takes a minute and helps more people find the show and helps us learn. And of course share this episode with a friend or colleague who might enjoy it. We wouldn't be here six years later and still going so strong without you all our community. So thank you for being part of it. Now onto the show. Where do you look for inspiration in applying AI in your world as CEO?
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B
I mean, you have to be curious. I mean in life you have to be open minded, you have to read, you have to interact with people. You have to never take things for granted. You have to ask AI itself, how can you help me? These kind of things. But I mean you can find inspiration anywhere.
- [01:03]
A
Hi, I'm Jim Stengel. I've helped hundreds of major brands discover and activate their purpose. Because when a brand's purpose is clear, compelling and authentic, profit naturally follows. Each week I welcome the CMOs, the chief marketing officers of your favorite brands, to speak to how their job is is so much more than marketing. These leaders share their inspiration and challenges along with how they try to build a full, healthy and happy life in and out of the office. And it's that energy that reaches everyone they touch. And we're glad you're here to feel that energy and to learn from these remarkable leaders. So here we go. @ CES, or the Consumer Electronics show, which happens every year in January in Las Vegas, the conversation around AI often swings between hype and fear, but the most important question for marketers is far more grounded how do you scale intelligence, creativity and performance without losing the human connection that brands are built on? That is exactly what this bonus episode is all about, recorded live on the C space stage at CES 2026. My guest is Yannick Bollaure, chairman and CEO of Havas, one of the world's largest global communications groups. Yannick joined me to share how Havas is approaching one of the biggest transformations our industry has ever faced in embedding AI deeply into his organization while keeping human creativity, judgment and empathy at the center. Our discussion is personal and wide ranging and begins with asking a volunteer from the audience to participate in An AI experiment. While Janik and I chat, Janik's team makes a movie trailer starring our audience volunteer. We unveil the trailer at the end of our interview. We also unveil a few new capabilities from Havas that Janik shares here for the first time and a first for our podcast. I'm very excited to bring you into the heart of CES as we look toward a new, exciting and innovation rich year. Well, hello, everyone. Hello. Janik and I are going to talk about everything, AI and agencies and brands and people and all that good stuff. But before we do that, we need a volunteer from this audience to run an experiment, a pilot while we're speaking. So I know this is very, very mysterious. Is there anyone out there who would be game to join us in this pilot or this experiment? Anyone out.
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B
There? Nothing dangerous.
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A
Huh? You want to. Oh, in the white jacket. Could you come forward? So join us in a minute. Say hello to Janik. Hi, nice to meet.
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B
You. Nice to meet.
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A
You. Is this the first time I.
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B
Met. I'm.
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A
Janik. Yes, it's the first time you met. Okay. Yes. So what is your.
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B
Name? Amanda.
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A
Flamerich. What's your.
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B
Hometown? Miami.
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A
Florida. You have a football team, don't you? Playing in the playoffs. You're not into that? Not really. Well, I was raised in Alabama.
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B
So I'm a Bama.
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A
Fan. Okay. We won't go there. So where do you.
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B
Work? In.
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A
Fillion. Okay, great. Super. Yeah. Now this, this is a. This might sound like an over promise, but this experiment will change your life forever. Do you watch Severance? No. No? Okay, well, we're not gonna put anything in your brain. Are we.
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B
Scared? We're not saying.
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A
Nothing. So what we'd like you to do is thank you for volunteering. I'm gonna escort you off stage to join some people on Jannik's team. We're gonna have you up at the end of our little talk to see how the experiment went, but believe me, it's going to change your life. Okay, Amanda. Thank you. Thank.
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B
You. Thank you.
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A
Amanda. So Yannick and I just had a tour of the floor. And so we went through it very, very quickly. And we just got back, so we're a little bit out of breath in a way. And you have not been here for many.
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B
Years? 10 years. 10 years last.
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A
Time. And I haven't been here for several years as well. But I want to ask you, from that quick snapshot of the floor, what struck you? What made you think what's going on here at.
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B
CES? For sure, I mean in 10 years it has changed a lot. I mean, 10 years ago, remember it was about Curve TV and the launch of 5G. And this year, I mean I've seen robots for real. I've seen robots playing ping pong. By the way, I play much better ping pong than the robots. I've seen robots fighting and I've seen robots taking a selfie with me. So I mean it's very interesting and great energy and it's great to spend time at the convention.
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A
Center. Did you have a feeling of optimism going through that? We spent some time with Siemens and how they do 3D printing for recycled materials at Disney. So we saw the paper battery company Flint. So I just want emotionally, how'd you feel walking through.
- [05:43]
B
There? I mean it's fantastic. I mean to travel the world. I'm coming from Europe to travel the world and to arrive in this place where you've seen all these brilliant minds investing to create a better future, I mean it's so energizing, so inspiring and for sure, all these innovations you talked about Siemens, some car companies, sustainable companies with recyclable batteries. I mean it will change the world for the best. It's very.
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A
Inspiring. Now we're going to get to some big heavy good topics and issues and discussion to talk about. But before we get there, I want to make this discussion very personal. So Yannick, you have a big job, lots of people, 23,000 people, several roles I want you to talk about. What was your first introduction to AI? What do you remember about that was your first experience with.
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B
It? Actually my first experience with AI was 15 plus years ago. I was sitting in my living room with my laptop checking on the website and I was just starting my career at Havas in advertising and my wife just joined me. She checked on the same website and we had different ads not to do any kind of stereotype. I had an ad for an expensive car and she had an ad for a dress. But I'm French, I can do stereotypes. And I realized, yeah, and I realized, I mean you have to be then intelligent to send the right eye, the right people on the right device. And this was the first time we launched Programmatic Buying. And then we've been begun and 2022 like everyone else. November, I discovered midjourney. I mean I come from the production space. This was a life changer. And a few weeks later When I discovered ChatGPT in December, I said, oh my God, this is going to be transformative. This is going to change.
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A
Everything. Yeah. So let's stay with that transformative idea. How has it changed your life? And I'd like you to speak as a. As a leader, but also a human being, as a husband, a dad, a.
- [07:41]
B
Friend. I guess, I mean, if you are at ces, you are all using AI a lot. So I guess like anybody else, the first weeks I was using AI as an assistant to summarize long emails, to translate documents, these kind of things. So I get a bit in productivity, but it was not like life changer. But a few weeks later, I understood how it worked. I learned how to prompt correctly, like comprehensive prompts. And AI became much more than an assistant. It became a thought partner. And you know, when you're the CEO of a company, sometimes you're alone and you don't really know how to articulate your thinking, how to develop a clear vision for the future. And using AI as a thought partner has changed my life. And you were saying I was a dad. I'm a dad of four daughters between 12 and 22 years old. And trust me, when you're a man to understand teenage daughters, it's not always easy. So it helped me to become a better dad, which might be the most.
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Important. So you had a unique perspective into the upcoming generation with four daughters, 12 to.
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B
23. You said 22. Yeah.
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22. How do they use AI and are they positive about.
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B
It? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I mean, especially the 17 years old, 19 years old, are using AI a lot. And I mean, with students, it's very interesting how they use AI. Some students are using AI to do their homeworks, which at the end of the day, I think it's just a waste of time. And some others are using AI to understand, to get better. They take pictures of their exam and they ask AI to challenge or they could have done better. And when you are using AI smartly, when you are a student, you can become a kind of super student. So I really encourage every parent to try to teach their kids how to use AI smartly to become a better person, not to replace.
- [09:24]
A
Yourself. We were walking outside here, coming in, coming back from the floor and passing all these companies. There's just so many, many firms here with all sorts of interesting.
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B
Offerings. It must be hard to be a.
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A
Cmo. It's hard to be a cmo. Yeah. Vouch for that. Where do you look for inspiration in applying AI in your world as.
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B
CEO? I mean, you have to be curious. I mean, in life you have to be open minded, you have to read, you have to interact with people. You have to never take things for granted. You have to ask AI itself, how can you help me? These kind of things. But, I mean, you can find inspiration.
- [10:00]
A
Anywhere. So we were on a stage, Janik and I, about six months ago at Cannes, and I host a program there for aspiring CMOs called the CMO Accelerator. There's about 60 people in the room. And Jani kicked off that two day program this year with LVMH. And what we did is we looked at their collaboration with LVMH for the Paris Olympics, which just blew everyone away. The numbers were incredible. It just on so many levels, it was an incredible experience. So they told that story about how they led that with such disruptive thinking, with such great outcomes. And you shared seven lessons, and I'm not going to get into all seven, but the first lesson you had, I think, was really wonderful. And you said it this way, start early, think bold and shape the rules. So I'd like you to reflect on that lesson from lvmh, the Paris Olympics. And is that a pretty good guidepost for what you're doing at Havas, for getting into AI and integrating it into your company and helping clients with their business.
- [11:03]
B
Outcomes? Yeah, I think it's a good analogy. I mean, you have to start early. You never know what's going to happen, but you have to start, you have to take risk, you have to try new things. I mean, with AI, I mean, three years later, three years and a half later with Generative AI, I mean, it has proven to be a success, but sometimes we fail. I remember six years ago when Metaverse was the thing, you had to invest. I remember we purchased the land in the sandbox. And by the way, it's a great land with a great view on the sea. If someone's interested to buy it, I can make you a big price in the booth. Yeah, I can make you a great price. So you have to start early. You never know what's going to happen then. I think the second one was think bold. I mean, you have to invest. When you feel you have something, you have to invest. And that's what we did. We have already invested 600 million euros in data tech and AI those past years, and we committed to another 400 million euros of investment. That's very important. And you have to shape the rules. You have to train everyone. You have to be at your best. This is how we double down on integration, on human ingenuity. I think those three rules may apply to many other great.
- [12:10]
A
Things. Now, your company is. I don't think people understand how old your company is. You go back to 1835, which we were talking before P and g started in 1837. So Havas is two years older than P and G. Did you pitch them back then? Do you know? Do you have any idea? So, no, But I want you to reflect on that rich history. Do you think what we're going through now and what your company is going through is the most profound change in your.
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B
History? I mean, in 200 years, 191 years. And by the way, Havaz started with career pigeon, so it's quite a different.
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A
Story. They're coming.
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B
Back. It was the ancestor of Twitter. So from pigeons to platform, I don't know if AI is the most profound change. What I think is that it might be the most profound opportunity to disrupt the industry and to disrupt our peers and to bring more value to clients. I mean, when you look in the advertising industry at the organic growth of the big six groups, from Avast to Omnicom, WPP and the rest in the past 10 years, 15 years, we more or less at the same organic growth, same kind of organic growth. The spread was maybe 100, 200 basis points following the global GDP. If you look at what happened in the past 18 months, I mean, honestly, we see a spread of almost 10% between the fastest growing industry player and the lowest declining. So I think this is changing in terms of market share of everything. So it might be the most profound disruption of the industry, maybe not the most profound change. Most profound.
- [13:47]
A
Disruption. So I want to talk about leadership for a moment. I mean, you have a big organization, 23,000 people. Many of them are in the room here. It's tough to shift an organization to follow transformative capabilities. It's tough for the clients, it's tough for you. So I want you to talk a little bit about what you and your leadership team have learned are doing to. You have this platform called converged AI. It's your operating system to integrate all your offerings to help clients. How are you changing the work, changing the training, changing the development of your people with your leadership team to be sure all 23,000 people are energized by that, are educated, and are activating with clients? It's.
- [14:34]
B
Hard. Yeah, it's very hard. It's a great question. In fact, what we didn't want to do with our leadership team is to replicate what happened in our industry 15 years ago, 20 years ago, with the digital booming. At that time, and this is when I joined Havas, I was very surprised because in the industry you had, I would say, half of the people were in charge of digital and the other half were in charge of what we call the offline or traditional media. And those two groups were not really communicating together, by the way. It was the people below 30 years old, 35 years old, who are digital and vice versa. And the digital people are saying, and traditional media is dead, TV is dead, print is dead, everything's dead. And traditional people, I must say, were saying, digital will never work. It's just a fashion, it's a buzzword. And at the end, it was a combination of two. So what I wanted to make sure with AI, what we wanted to make sure with AI, to make sure that everyone, every 23,000 employees at Avast were fully trained around AI. So first we needed to create a clear vision just to make sure that the leadership team, the executive committee agreed that AI was a revolution. And I can tell you, after one discussion, one hour discussion, we agreed that we needed to go full on on AI. We even needed to pivot to become an AI first driven company, which is not something that we needed to take lightly. That's something very important to pivot. So we created all the trainings, we created certifications. So for instance, next week we are having our leadership meeting with 150 leaders coming from the world to Europe to a headquarter in Paris. And in order to attend the leadership meeting, you have to receive a certification that you are proficient in AI. Now, it's been three years that generative AI is here in the market. So for me, AI has not to be something in the future, it has to be something in the present. We have to implement AI now. So we have provided people with tools, with trainings. And I would say that what I want to do is to have 100% of the people becoming AI experts. That's our.
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A
Goal. Now you have some competitors.
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Right?
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A
Unfortunately. Do you feel like this is a great opportunity for your company to differentiate.
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B
Further? Yeah, I think when I look at the situation today in terms of results, Havas is the second best performer in the industry. And it's interesting because a lot of people are asking, does Havas has a scale? Because still we are a large company, 23,000. But our competitors can be bigger. And with the merger of the two, American players are going to be even bigger. But at the end, what I'm saying, when you have enough scale, it's even better not to be too big. Because when you have to move in times of changes, we are more agile, more nimble. So I would say that our scale makes us by far the strongest challenger of the industry. And our clients seem to like it when you look at and talents like it. I mean, they all love to work at Avast. And when you look at the number of clients that have joined us those past 12 months, I mean, it's crazy. I think 2025 will be by far one of the best year in terms of new business in the world. So this has really helped this AI.
- [17:42]
A
Transformation. We'll talk about clients in a moment, but I want to stay at the leadership theme. You talk about you and your leadership team are doing with all your people and the meeting you're having, so on and so forth. But I want you to reflect a bit how you are leading differently and hal, is your job and what you do and what you pay attention to and how you operate different from what it was five years.
- [18:03]
B
Ago? Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question. I think I've changed the way I lead the company since AI happened because when you're developing such a disruptive vision, you need to make sure that's what you're delivering to your clients. And the talent experience is just following the vision. You need to align them both. And the great thing about generative AI is that you become like, not a tech expert, but you can do tech. It's very easy to understand tech. You can code in natural language, you can create things. So I would say I'm much more into details, I'm much more into products. I spend a lot of time with the team, with our data teams, our tech team. I mean, Dan Hagen is in the room. He's our chief data and tech officer. I have him on the phone every week to design the tools to design the products we're offering to clients. So I would say I'm much more into detail than I was maybe before this new.
- [19:01]
A
Era. Do you enjoy your job more.
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Now? I love, honestly, you know, I'm paid to go to ces, to meet great people, play with robots, to play ping pong with robots. You know what I mean? How can you not enjoy it.
- [19:15]
A
Now? I know your company reasonably well and I know a number of your people, many in the audience. And I know a strong value or principle at Havas is this idea of business partnership with clients and extreme client centricity. That's how you integrate. You integrate to help clients achieve their dreams and their outcomes. So all of this work you're doing, your capability would be academic if you didn't apply it to clients. So I'd like to talk a bit and I'm sure we have a few clients in the room. I'd like to talk about some of the work that you're proud of and interested in right now in applying AI to help clients achieve their outcomes. I know you can't talk about all of them, but are there some examples? Because I think we love marketers, love case studies, we'd love to hear what other people are doing. So I'd like you to go there with.
- [20:01]
B
Us. Yeah, I think, I mean you mentioned client centricity and I think this is one of the point of differentiation I have asked. Clearly what we are here for is to create growth for our clients. We're not here to create growth for ourselves and to be happy with ourselves. We are not self centered at all. We are really working on the best interests of our clients. And what our clients are asking for is to have, I mean better strategic ideas, better creative craft, better media plan to reach the right audience at the right time and at a better price. I'm sure we have a lot of clients, so we have a lot of pressure from clients and procurement on prices and AI is really helping us to change things. I mean when you talk about, let's say production for instance, I mean we have been able to reduce the cost of production moving from 3D to AI by 15 to 30, sometimes 50%. And I can mention a lot of clients, Rakit, L', Oreal, Renault for a car, 50% cost reduction in production. We are doing great proof of concept. I saw yesterday, Marissa, the CMO of Wyndham. We have done great proof of concept on AI as well. And I would say some other examples that we are doing and I was very interested. We had a very important meeting with one of our largest clients just before the holidays and it was all the EXCOMM and they gave us, I would say two months to prepare to develop a vision for 2035. I mean they wanted to scrap their categories 10 years ahead. I mean we're talking about next year, next quarter, 10 years. How our industry will look like in 10 years, 2035 and how can you invent a new model collaborating with us and other company just to make sure that we will disrupt the industry and to have.
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A
The. It's a good client by the way. It's a good question. Good.
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B
Brief. Yeah, good brief. And two months, I mean really worked a lot during the past two months. I'm looking at Dona or Peter, but it was quite an interesting meeting to develop this vision and to have the time to work as a business partner, not a supplier. We like to have this direction that we work together. And together if we develop a long term vision and if we trust each other, we can really outperform the.
- [22:02]
A
Market. Do you and your team feel that clients are embracing AI smartly and fast.
- [22:07]
B
Enough? Generally depend on the clients. I would say our industry honestly were the first to move to AI very early on. And then some clients, I mean they knew about AI, but you know, they are, they fear for compliance, security. If you take, let's say the banking system or the health system. So there was a bit later. But our role, I would say as a marketing agency is to help and to lead, I would say is to lead our clients to the future. So that's why we are here, that's why we believe we are bringing a great value to our.
- [22:40]
A
Clients. Now I want to talk a bit about. We're talking about your company and AI. I want you to sort of helicopter up a bit and I want to talk a bit about the industry. So what do you think? I mean, in a way it's a question this client asked 10 years out and maybe we can even say five years out. How do you think this is going to change this industry that you've spent your career in? I have too. Media.
- [23:05]
B
Creativity. If you allow me, Jim, I will answer from the lens of investors because as a CEO of a publicly listed company, we are meeting investors after every quarter with your roadshows. And the question today with investors, is this industry an AI winner or this industry is an AI loser? And basically they invest in AI winners and they sell or short AI losers. And the question is not very clear about advertising. We have a lot of investors and people believing that we will all be replaced by ChatGPT or Gemini in terms of strategic ideas that clients can do by themselves. Advertising, creative campaigns, doing media by themselves. It's not working like that. That's. No, I mean if you want to, I mean our job, what is our job? I mean it's to create desire for a brand, to create brand preference, pricing, power. And you cannot do that without a big strategic insights, a big strategic idea. And at the end of the day, what makes a difference? The people behind the machine. I'm sorry to state the obvious, but AI by itself will not create a campaign that will bring you value. AI driven by the best people, by the best talent will make a difference. And what we say at Avast is that agencies using AI will replace agencies not using AI for sure. But at the end, I believe agencies will continue to bring value to clients. But then if you look at it, you have to look at the threats because you look at the opportunities. I believe AI personally is an opportunity for industry, but you have some threats first. You have the threats on jobs. Let's be clear, for some jobs, AI is getting some jobs redundant. So I mean, they have to adapt. We believe at AVA that we can absorb the growth, like say 2 to 3% a year without hiring new people. So that's why we are training a lot of people and pivoting to an AI first company. So job second threat is around hallucinations. I mean, you cannot 100% trust AI. Even if the hallucination rate is 1 to 2%, depending on the LLM you're using, it still can happen. And when you have a big presentation for a client, I mean, you don't want to mess up. They give wrong numbers, wrong source. This cannot happen. So that's why we are training our people to do comprehensive prompts to understand how to limit those hallucination. And by the way, if I may, you need to gain experience to use AI. Well, you need to to have developed for yourself some critical thinking capabilities. So maybe it's a bit contrarian, but I think it will be easier for grownups, for experienced people to use AI at its best than for juniors that by nature don't have the same kind of experience. And the third threat which might be the biggest is data privacy. Because if one day one of our agency uploads clients data in the cloud or whatever and it becomes public, this will be a catastrophe. And this is why we have been working those past 18 months on launching a new portal using large LLM, using agentic capabilities that we are launching today at CES. So if you allow me, Jim, maybe to play a short video and to officially launch our new platform called ava. So please, ladies and gentlemen, meet.
- [26:30]
A
Eva. Hi ces. I'm Ava. Born from the heart of Havos and powered by our proprietary platform, Converged AI. I help our people go from brief to breakthrough in record time. With one prompt, they can instantly connect to all Havas's knowledge in seconds. Digging deeper into audiences, identifying more opportunities to reach the right people at the right time. Building agents without code, making our people more powerful than ever. Security, compliance and privacy are built in, so everyone can boldly go where few LLMs can. GPT5, Claude Gemini. The best model Models are all here to power new solutions for clients. This is limitless, supercharged creativity at Havas. Great to meet you. So you heard it here.
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B
First. Thank.
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A
You. I have a very tough question. Where'd you get the name? Very clever, Ava. Eva in the middle of Havas. Was that your.
- [27:54]
B
Idea? It's not my idea. Congrats to the team. I thought it was a great idea. Great idea, Eva. It's great. It's going to change the way we operate, the way we operate with our clients. Much more effective, much more efficient in addressing both the opportunities and the concerns at the same time that AI is.
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A
Bringing. So what's your greatest hope for Eva? If we look out. Five.
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B
Years. I mean, my vision. I mean, we've been discussing with the team. It's not in five years. I mean, it's this year. I mean, it's 2026. Is that every morning when you arrive at the office or when you work from home or wherever, when you open your laptop, you have this portal. You connect to this portal that helps you do the best of your day with your day. Clients will connect to the portal to see where we are at. All the validation systems for the campaigns for everything will be on this portal. I mean, we will save so much time, so much effectiveness, so much efficiencies. I mean, Ava will gather all the partnerships we are doing with other companies. It will really be the centerpiece of the future of.
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A
Ava's. You're a very curious company. It's one of your values, and we may talk about that at the end of this discussion. But you're always out there looking for what's around the corner, who you should work with, who represents some emerging capabilities. And I know you have some other ideas in your pipeline. You just shared one with Eva, but I know you have one you wanted to share today, so could you talk about that one? It is an outside partner that I think is a new partner of yours. So could you talk about.
- [29:20]
B
That? Yeah, maybe two. Two new ideas that we haven't announced yet because we are at ces, so we need to make announcements. So, one, we just signed a partnership with an agent company called Ekyo for Havas Media. It's going to be great, really helping us. And the second one you mentioned, it's a company, you know, I mean, when you're a client, it's very hard to understand the different type of audiences. This is why we are creating Personas. And in the past, to use Personas, you need to do some qualitative research, ask questions. It was very expensive. It was taking a lot of time, and we made this company. And Chad, the founder, is in the room called Vervet, which has created basically generative AI Personas. I don't know how he did it, but it's working really well. And you have those Personas and you can ask any question to test a campaign to ask for your brands and you understand like you get much better insights. And for CES, we prepared a video where we asked two Personas that are neurodivergent. Gen Z. You know, 53% of the Gen Z identify as neurodivergent what they think about ces. So let's play the.
- [30:31]
A
Video. Conferences like CES can be very overwhelming for me. I think being able to see through the hype, to find the tech that is truly unique and differentiated is my favorite part. I like taking the time to do my research. But another neuroverse Persona like Diego might think.
- [30:49]
B
Differently. Hello, Janik. It is intense, yet amazing. There's interesting tech everywhere, robots, xr, something amazing around every corner. I'm very excited about discovering and learning about all the new tech featured at CES this year. Congrats. And this is a company where we have invested into.
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A
It. I mean, you know, this area, VERBA is in this whole area. I guess the big banner would be synthetic research. I think it's one of the most exciting applications in our industry of AI. It's just, it's going to make us smarter, faster, better. So good for.
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B
You.
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A
Yeah. Behind a company like.
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B
That. We're.
- [31:23]
A
Happy. Now, listen, we've talked about agencies, talked about havas, what's going to happen. I want to talk a bit about brands because I've heard some pundits say the age of brands is over and this is the final blow. I have a point of view on that, but I'd rather hear your point of view. So do you think this is a highly risky time for brands, this era we are moving.
- [31:43]
B
Into? I mean, I'm sure the audience would love to hear your point of view as well. Tim, on brands, I mean, what we know, it's two things. First, 1 75, 77 of brands could disappear. No one could care. It's a proprietary study from avas. But at the same time, every time there is a revolution, brands get stronger and stronger. What's interesting to note is how generative AI is working. If you take the time to understand how it works, you can do some reverse engineering of those tools. And we did it in order to do like we did in the past with search engine optimization, SEO. We are doing it now with geo generative engine optimization. And what's, I mean, the learnings, the obvious learning that our brands are even stronger today. I mean, brands are coming stronger from this new revolution. And today in the world we are living, it's hard to know what's true, what's not true. I'm sure you have all seen all those videos on social networks. You don't know if it's real or not. And brands, I mean, as long as they have great CMOs and great foundations, solid foundations, brands bring trust. And I think in the world where you don't know what's true or not, to be able to trust your brand will be even stronger. Now, what do you.
- [33:02]
A
Think? Yeah, I mean, I think if you look back over time and I did this, I leveraged AI in doing this, looking at the number of people employed in our industry and sort of the brand health ratings, and you go back to radio, TV and Internet and mobile and social, and now AI Actually, the number of people working in marketing has grown through all that. That it's changed, but it has grown. And the other one is brands have never been stronger. And look at any, any of the measuring services that look at brand health. And I don't think that's going to reverse because I think, and I think my predecessor or my successor, P and G Mark Pritchard, talked about this at Cannes last year. With everything going on in our world, brands need to understand who they are, how they're different, the difference they're making in the world and stay true to that in everything they do. And that, I think is more needed now than ever. So I think I'm optimistic about it. But it's up to us, right? And trust is the key thing. I mean, it's always been right. Brands were formed as trust marks way.
- [34:10]
B
Back. But make sure for CMOs who are in the room to choose wisely. Your agency.
- [34:15]
A
Partner. That was off script. That's good. Now, before we see if Amanda is still around or if she's changed or if her life has been transformed, I do want to talk a bit about. You have a strong philosophy and I've heard you talk about this several times about arrogance. Avoid it like crazy. Stay humble and stay curious. Now, those sound like platitudes, maybe, but it's how you live them. So with all these people in the room, some with agencies, some with tech companies, some with clients, could you talk about how you activate those values in your life and how you and your leadership activate those.
- [34:56]
B
Values? I mean, it's. I mean, it's a question about culture. I believe it's very important for a company to have to Have a strong culture. Our culture is really around curiosity. It's really about never become arrogant, Never take six, never take things for granted. I mean, I. Havas has been here like 200 years, almost 200 years, and we've seen a lot of changes in the industry. And I think it's important always to try to reinvent yourself, to think out of the box. And even when you're performing, which is our case, instead of saying, okay, we are there. Havas is doing well. Let's, you know, no, it's time to accelerate. It's time to accelerate, and I'm very happy to. Fantastic people. I mean, you know, most of our leadership team that came from the US And Europe today, we have. We have great people and teams. At the end of the day, you know, it's what makes a difference because we've been talking a lot about AI tools, tech, which of course is a huge disruption. But at the end of the day, I mean, this year we have been onboarding a lot of new clients. And every time we win a new client, I tend to meet with the CMO or the CEO or the person in charge, and I ask, why have you chosen to work with Avas? I mean, we didn't know each other before. We had no previous relationship. You have been pitching the six holding companies, so why AVAs? And in 100% of the answers, it's always the same things. Your team and your tools. So you cannot oppose one with the other. Is to have the best team, the most motivated team with the best.
- [36:37]
A
Tool.
- [36:38]
B
And. And when you have both, which is our case right now, we are on a good run. So you want to be seen as I'm becoming.
- [36:45]
A
Arrogant. You want to be seen as an AI company. And the multiples are very.
- [36:49]
B
Different. AI, but fueled by human ingenuity. At the end of the day, it's really important to find the balance between the two. Really.
- [36:57]
A
Important. What do you think will be the most important signal from your team and your company that you're achieving that the next 12.
- [37:04]
B
Months? I mean, the biggest change, I would say, in our industry through AI would say, how do you connect the new smart production with media and cx? I would say that everyone's working on the same thing is just to make sure that we can send the right asset, I mean, the right piece of content to the right audience at the right time. So it's really a combination of different assets from our data assets or media assets, or everything we are building around CX and your new way of doing production. Because now With AI, you can do from one asset, one content asset, like personalized asset for.
- [37:45]
A
Everyone. Well, that's a good.
- [37:47]
B
Segue. It's a good.
- [37:48]
A
Segue. You're bringing Amanda back.
- [37:49]
B
Right? Yeah, maybe it could be a good segue. Because if you want maybe a bit of context before we bring Amanda. Is Amanda back? Is she still.
- [37:57]
A
Alive?
- [37:58]
B
Amanda. Okay, so please come on stage.
- [38:01]
A
Amanda. So come on stage, Amanda. So Janika is going to give us some context. But what's your life been like the last hour? I feel like a new.
- [38:15]
B
Woman. Don't.
- [38:17]
A
Exaggerate. Come on over in the middle. You feel like a new woman. Do you think you have a career change? Oh, I don't know. My bosses are probably.
- [38:25]
B
Not. I'm happy where I.
- [38:28]
A
Am. Okay, good. Janik, do you want to set this.
- [38:30]
B
Up? Yeah. Maybe a bit of context. So you have to know that I'm coming from. I started my career in the production, so I really love production. So I know production very well. And three and a half years ago, I discovered, midjourney, I discovered all that. It was a big change. Now, just by prompting, you can do great images. And we gather with a team at Avast. It's our production tool. It's called Pop Pros and Pixels. And we said, let's say, let's try to do it at scale, because this can change everything. If you can do a picture very easily, can we do a video? And they told me like three years ago, I mean, Steve and all the team, Gregory Xavier, no, you cannot do video because when you work with clients, you need to have, like, a perfect craft and video. It will never work. And I said, what if? So we started to hire mathematicians to invest, to gather things. And we have tried to those past three years to build the best production tools that exist in the industry, working and partnering with the best players. I mean, Adobe, everyone. And just to make sure that we can add our data and tech stack on that. And what you're going to see right now is just from a picture. So I think my team, if I'm correct, they just took a picture of you. Like 20 minutes ago, they took a picture of you. And you are all marketing professionals. So please see what you can do in 15 minutes from just a picture to a movie. So please.
- [39:54]
A
Launch. This is Amanda's first movie trailer for her new career in Hollywood. Let's bring it on. In a land where legends die hard. One soul ride alone with nothing left to loose. Las Vegas, home to the biggest, richest vault in the West. A treasure without equal. Locked behind steel and guarded by fear. Ain't no man crazy enough to rob this place. Until the devils of the frontier came riding. They brought chaos, anarchy and blood. But when the sun sets on the frontier, the true enemy rises. You can't take them all alone. In a world where daylight fights for mercy, nightfall brings the real.
- [41:19]
B
War. Bull Run. I think you're.
- [41:37]
A
Right. I have. How's it feel? First movie? It feels amazing. It's a blockbuster hit. I hope you all come out to support me. I'll have my agent call your agent and I'm shocked. Yeah, that's about.
- [41:53]
B
It. I'm out of.
- [41:54]
A
Words. You're a good sport, Amanda. Thank you. Thank you.
- [41:56]
B
Much.
- [41:56]
A
So. And thank you, Yannick, for a great.
- [41:58]
B
Team. Thank you. Thank you.
- [41:59]
A
Everyone. Thank you, everyone. Have a great ces. Happy New Year. Thank you so.
- [42:03]
B
Much. Thank.
- [42:05]
A
You. That's it for this week's episode of the CMO Podcast. As always, I would be grateful if you shared our show with your friends, along with subscribing and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. The CMO Podcast is a Vive Original production. The views and opinions expressed by podcast speakers and guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of our sponsors or its personnel, nor do our sponsors advocate or endorse any individuals or entities featured on the.