As CEO of GroupM France, Pierre Conte oversees one of the leading media investment management operations in France – comprising five media agencies and billings of €2.3 billion a year. He shares his views on where the advertising industry is headed, and what excites him about the future of the industry...
Tell us about your career and your experience in the advertising industry...
In the grand scheme of my 25-year career I have actually had quite a short time in media agencies. I was CEO at OMD from 2002 to 2005, but have spent most of my career within media companies, the press, radio and TV, including Canal Plus. After that I became CEO of Figaro Media and Figaro Classifieds, as well as director of Madame Figaro, before taking on my current role as CEO of GroupM France. That mix of working on both sides – with agencies and media brands – has put me in good stead for my current role.
Having seen an incredible change in media advertising and marketing trends, where is the money being spent now?
What we have seen in recent years is not just a change in advertising but a complete re-engineering of the whole marketing organisation within the big clients. Advertising is really just one tool within the whole marketing revolution. Every brand and every business has gone through the same change – from car brands, to luxury brands to banking. The driver behind that change has been the need to respond to consumers’ habits. It has challenged everything in the media companies and there is a turmoil on both sides – in media businesses and brands. Advertising is in the middle of that. Advertising has always been an answer to the mood of the consumers for the media companies. Now, the focus is on trying to integrate advertising, content and data.
All of this has led to a change in what clients expect from advertising agencies. In the past, the agencies were just here to bring solutions. Now, we are much more involved in the whole re-engineering that the marketing teams are going through, including of course how they can use data across their companies. We are working with our clients to help them make the best use of data. Data is the source for marketing – and that has altered everything.
Do you expect to see more consolidation among the big advertising agencies as we move forward?
Yes, there will definitely be more consolidation and integration. That will be caused by two things. The first is that the bigger, more established companies are striving to build the same offering worldwide, and that will cause consolidation as many will look at acquiring other firms to create that global presence. The second thing is the question of data. All the major groups will invest in a single data model within the company, which will need to be international. That will result in more companies using the same agency for all their work across that continent, or even worldwide.
Do you feel media companies’ love affair with branded content will continue?
I am a little bit cautious of saying that everything is about the content and that branded content is now the only solution for businesses. It is true that good content is provoking much more reaction than advertising, and that is why everyone is going to content at the moment. It has a high social capacity and is a high source of data. But at the same time it is a bit of a gold rush to branded content. Branded content has to be high quality and if it’s not done well it is not highly beneficial for the brand. So I would be a bit cautious of saying that brand content is now everything in advertising.
How can traditional print brands survive in the new age?
The first thing to say on the print industry is that the newspapers and magazines have no choice about the direction they are moving in. The industry is evolving and they cannot fight the way marketing teams are working. They are on the slope and they have to ski on the slope. I would say the big newspapers, in particular the daily newspapers, have had a stronger reaction than magazines, and the daily brands are in a better shape worldwide than the magazine brands. In response, I think the big magazine brands need to be really bold about embracing digital and creating additional content to their print offering. The web is now all about video, so the big print brands must go for it in terms of video creation.
Which emerging trends excite you at the moment around advertising?
What excites me right now is how we meet the need for integration – to have everything reaching for the same goal for each brand. The other exciting thing for me is the style of storytelling we are starting to see from the big brands now. That is creating some really exciting content and I am looking forward to seeing more of that.
Do you want to hear more about how brands approach advertising and marketing these days, and the role publishers can play in the new marketing landscape?
The Digital Innovators' Summit on 24-25 March in Berlin will devote a session and panel on this topic, in addition to a range of publishers sharing their approaches to marketing in other individual sessions.
Check out the programme and speakers so far confirmed, and register here for the 7th Digital Innovators' Summit.