When new Publicis Groupe CEO Arthur Sadoun caused a storm on La Croisette last June by saying he was pulling out of awards – including Cannes – for a year to fund a new internal intelligence tool called Marcel one of the reactions was: we’ll believe it when we see it. Sadoun, it was said, was just saving money.
Well Marcel is on the road it seems courtesy of Microsoft although you might have expected Publicis’ Sapient division to have the ability to make it itself. But Microsoft is a pretty decent friend and ally, the more so when you can persuade its CEO Satya Nadella to talk up the partnership with you.
Running an agency group is as much about access and profile as anything and Arthur certainly seems to be demonstrating that.
It doesn’t actually matter that much if Marcel is any good. Sadoun already has his PR coup.
