Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet founded ad agency Publicis 100 years ago in Paris and this week the company hosted celebrations in that city and New York. 

The New York bash was held at Casa Cipriani in downtown NYC and the Paris soiree convened at Élysée Montmartre, a historic music hall in the Montmartre district, where Bleustein-Blanchet set up the agency’s first offices.  

Combined, the galas drew roughly 1,500 celebrants. 

Both Chairman and CEO Arthur Sadoun and his predecessor and current Chairman Emeritus Maurice Lévy flew in for the New York event. In the company’s first 100 years, just three executives have served as CEO—the founder, Lévy and Sadoun. 

In his remarks Sadoun thanked the company’s clients for helping make the company what it is today. The firm has always embraced change, he said, noting a line attributed to Bleustein-Blanchet “creativity does not change, what changes is everything around it.” 

Lévy noted that he’s served the company for over half its lifetime, having joined in 1971 as head of its IT department. He recounted some of the agency’s monumental successes as well as its trials and tribulations, including a devasting fire that nearly wiped the company out in 1972.  He was instrumental in helping bring the firm back to life. 

Bleustein-Blanchet, recalled Lévy, was one of the most “brilliant creative minds of the last century.” 

The name Publicis is derived from the French word for advertising, publicité, combined with the number six (“cis”), signifying the founder’s birth year, 1906. He was a Leo. As Sadoun put it Bleustein was “the lion that never gave up, always looking forward.” Just like the company today.  

See more about the firm’s history in a 35-minute documentary that can be viewed here.  

 Lévy, above and Sadoun, below, addressing celebrants at Publicis' 100th anniversary gala in New York this week.