“We don’t care about Wall Street.”  

That’s how Publicis Groupe CEO Arthur Sadoun responded to a question about Publicis Groupe’s languishing stock price. 

Sadoun was participating in a Q&A on the main stage at the Cannes Lions Festival earlier today, along with company board chairman Maurice Levy.  They were interviewed by The Wall Street Journal’s advertising editor Suzanne Vranica. 

“We invest for the future and don’t care so much about the short term,” Sadoun elaborated. 

Asked if the major AI players such as OpenAI, Anthropic and others will disrupt the virtual monopoly control on the sell side by Google and Meta, Sadoun replied: “The more complex the business becomes, the better for us. It makes our role even more important.” 

Vranica asked both of the executives about comments by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who essentially suggested that businesses could simply provide their budgets and goals and Meta would do all their marketing for them. 

Those remarks, said Levy, were an “insult to the intelligence of clients.” Sadoun agreed the comments were a “big mistake.” 

While many in the industry have complained about the opaque “walled gardens” that Meta and Google have set up around their advertising businesses, Vranica asked if Publicis essentially hasn’t created something similar, particularly with its recent Live Ramp acquisition.  

“We’re the opposite,” Sadoun responded, asserting that the company operates with “total transparency toward clients. They know it all,” he said. 

Noting that creative agencies have struggled in recent years to generate the profits they once did, Vranica asked Levy if looking back, the strategy of unbundling media and creative and turning media into a cash cow was a sound strategy.  

“Media has always been the cash cow,” Levy replied.