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 growth 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 strategy was twofold: tell the story of our industry-leading AI innovation both internally and externally. We wanted to personally thank each and every employee for their contributions to an incredible performance year with a bespoke message from our leaders that would not only showcase our tech-forward creative and production capabilities but reinforce our people-first values. Ahead of the unveiling of our new AI-driven “Intelligent System” positioning, we wanted to remind our global workforce they are valued and that no matter how much we tap into machine intelligence, human creativity will always be at the heart of our solutions.

The campaign launched on January 11th, nearly two weeks before we were scheduled to announce our new corporate strategy to become the industry’s first AI-powered “Intelligent System.” Wishes was a powerful signal demonstrating our ability to design and test the capabilities of AI to power storytelling at mass scale and showed our employees, clients and the industry at large what’s possible. To amplify that message externally to the press, we conducted targeted outreach to key journalists and influential editors across business and advertising trades and distributed a press release about the campaign. The outreach led to an influx of articles detailing the ambitious production in publications across the globe, including Ad Age, Adweek and Campaign. We further heightened the messaging on our social platforms, with posts touting the campaign on LinkedIn, Instagram and X.

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, 78K video 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.