2023 was a remarkable year for Publicis. We outperformed competitors for the fourth consecutive year, ranking first in organic growth, new business, ESG, and market value. So when it came time for our CEO, Arthur Sadoun, to send his yearly holiday greeting to employees, we wanted a message as remarkable as our year—a personalized “Thank You” to each employee in our global network.

The ambitious project allowed us to test AI’s video storytelling capabilities at scale. While client appetite was high, it remained to be seen if the technology could deliver. Rather than concede to AI’s limitations, we set out to design a system to generate more than 100,000 unique messages. Our experiment would not only give us an inventive way to thank our global workforce but allow us to test, learn, and progress toward realizing a long-held marketer’s dream—the delivery of true personalized messaging at scale.

Wishes expertly blends generative AI and creativity in a groundbreaking effort that pushes the boundaries of AI video generation, storytelling, and personalization at scale. Utilizing the profile details of 100,000 employees from Marcel, our internal AI talent platform, and cutting-edge AI technology, we created tailored video messages thanking our entire global workforce.

100 million data points drove the storytelling - customized to match employee roles, countries, interests, and hobbies. Each video opens with an expected direct-to-camera greeting from our CEO, Arthur Sadoun, but soon it’s clear, this is no ordinary holiday message. Arthur’s AI twin joins to personally thank each employee, addressing each by name, showing their names tattooed on his arm or featured on his coffee mug. Arthur is joined by key executives from our board, Agathe Bousquet (CEO Publicis Groupe France), Dave Penski (CEO Publicis Media), Carla Serrano (CSO Publicis Groupe), and Nigel Vaz (CEO Publicis Sapient).

Our trailblazing experiment leveraged employee data from more than 100,00 profiles on Marcel, our AI-powered talent growth platform that networks our employees across the globe and hosts our talent experience. Data was pulled from employee profiles – self-populated like external social media profiles and connected to their LinkedIn profiles – and combined with information from our HR system to customize storylines, visuals, languages, even which executives appear in each person’s clip. 100 million data points tailored the content to match roles, locations, interests, and hobbies. A message for Eva, a sports-loving managing partner in Austria, shows Carla Serrano climbing K2, playing tennis and dancing as a ballerina. While a video for Laure, a multi-lingual experience director in Paris, features Agathe Bousquet as a digital avatar, skateboarding and playing video games. Links to the bespoke videos were then emailed to employees, directing them to Marcel to view their personalized message.

To achieve our enterprising ambition, we mobilized more than 100 employees across disciplines, agencies, and geographies, and integrated six disparate AI technologies to create an AI-powered, human-first, instant video generation studio.

AI video, while promising, is still incredibly unpredictable. We needed to build a reliable, human-driven workflow. Connecting cutting-edge AI tools across image and video creation, facial reproduction, lip-sync, and voice generation, we built a system that could accept prompts, generate scripts and clips, and build an edit, instantly. We partnered with OpenAI, Nvidia, ElevenLabs (language and translation), HeyGen (voice training), and Runway (video), among others.

Each video was personalized using more than 100 million data points. Storylines, visuals, even leaders featured, were customized to match employee roles, languages, interests, and hobbies. Extensive AI training using voice recordings, creative inputs, and employee information was needed to ensure personalized outputs. Management talent featured in the videos had to record their voice for an hour to train the AI and accommodate for 35 languages. Talent committees across 15 geographies reviewed the content to make sure imagery and action depicted was culturally appropriate.

The fast-paced evolution of the technology, and its limitations, meant we had to make multiple pivots over the three-month production and get comfortable with the idea that when it comes to AI video, perfection isn’t yet possible. We had to adjust the concept several times and our tech lineup. An early script had executives talking and moving at the same time, but the tech was too unstable and presented challenges for consistent storytelling at the lengths required.

The scale of creative output—we generated 7000 hours of video over the course of three days—meant perfection was not an option. There were going to be glitches, but we had to accept that. When breaking barriers, it comes with the territory.

Wishes turned a routine internal corporate communications exercise into a headline-generating proof of concept showcasing our industry-leading creativity and AI’s potential for personalized marketing at mass scale. Our pioneering work showed us – and our clients – what’s possible.

Our work set the stage for our €300 million investment in AI and accelerated our transformation from a platform to an intelligent system company.

Wishes fostered positive employee engagement that echoed outside our walls. The effort drew more than 35,000 views on Marcel across top markets, generated a 30% jump in average traffic to the platform, and prompted more than 3,000 employees to download and share their videos.

The campaign’s inventive use of AI video production at scale also generated significant earned media impact, garnering 74 press hits in leading industry publications across the globe, including Ad Age, Adweek, and Campaign, earning more than 17.6M media impressions in press coverage alone. And on our social media channels, over the course of five days, the campaign earned 147K impressions and 65K video views on LinkedIn, 78Kvideo plays on Instagram, and 25K views on YouTube.

The experimental project not only pushed the boundaries of what’s achievable with AI but set a new creative benchmark for the delivery of mass personalization for clients everywhere in the world.