David Droga : «We, as an industry, have to embrace AI»

First of all David, how many Cannes Lions have you attended and what are your fondest memories of the festival?

David Droga. This year, I think it is my 25th Festival ! I've seen it from many vantage points and enjoyed every dimension of it because it's always changing. It's one of the many reasons why I like it. Apart from the social side, where I can relive my career, because I can meet people and see people that I worked with, from Australia, Asia, I love to see the impact of the creative work and how it's matured, evolved and diversified. Obviously the festival has expanded exponentially and on so many different dimensions and layers, with all the other industries that have rallied and joined forces with it and sort of tethered themselves to it. It is almost like the rings of a tree. Just look at the beach… Parties on the seashore tell you who's got the money in the industry : holding companies to media companies to entertainment companies to tech companies to platforms... It sort of gives an interesting snapshot. Plus, personally, I'm aware that the festival has always been very good to me (smiles) ! I'm always motivated and inspired by what's happening there. But I think I'm most optimistic about the fact that the necessity of creativity is still the heart, the marrow of the festival.

Would you say that we have shifted from an advertising festival to a creativity festival in the broader sense of the term? 

It’s necessary. I came from the advertising industry, I started as an advertising copywriter and I built an advertising agency, but I think the preservation of the festival requires expanding it from being an advertising festival to a creative festival. The creativity is liquid and it can be poured into any industry. That is important, because what we're asked to solve now is far more than just advertising. When Cannes Lions were just a pure advertising creative festival and they invited clients, a lot of people were very upset and nervous about clients being around. I always thought it was brilliant : it really validated the festival, because we can't do it in isolation. We're not creating a parade meant for us just to just have fun. It's there to obviously move business forward. And in order to do that, you need the clients : as soon as the clients came, the money came along and that's why it is probably the most influential creative festival in the world.

Do you think the number of Lions for campaigns using AI will increase this year?

There's no question that AI is becoming a transformational and profound technology tool. But in the context of things created with AI, particularly marketing and advertising, there still are a lot of barriers with that because there's obviously intellectual property (IP), licensing and that side of things. If you're asking “Will AI change and transform multiple industries ?”, it absolutely will ! But I don't think it's going to replace the need for creativity. Even if, at the end of the day, not all creativity is worth preserving. The creativity that moves us forward is not going to be replaced by AI. What it will do is it'll get rid of the mediocre middle and the lazy pedestrian stuff. I'm excited and intimidated by AI but it's still just a tool. All technologies have moved creativity forward, if you go back in history : internet, broadcast, photography… They're all forms of technology. 

Now, the pace, speed and expansive nature of AI is going to be different. But I think in the context of the marketing side of things, from the creation of ideas or moving footage, there'll be some gimmicky stuff or some small emergency stuff, but I don't think that's where AI is showing up in the real world at the moment either. And we see it from Accenture Song because we do much more than marketing. We see it in marketing but not in the advertising side of it : in performance marketing, in personalization very much, but it's also very prevalent in the service side of the consumer. Now, that's not rewarded and celebrated as much as it can. Yet, AI is not going to be shaking much at the world that I grew up in, made of TV, print, out of home… Again, because it's still lots of hurdles to go through. Everybody, collectively, is trying to work out the guardrails around AI. In fact, I'm giving a speech in Cannes with the CTO of OpenAI Mira Murati by the way [“When AI Challenges and Champions Human Creativity”, monday, june 17th]. Which is great, because we need to talk about the necessity of harmony between technology and creatives. I leave for a moment my CEO hat and return to my original David Droga creative chairman hat, and we have a very productive conversation.

But you know what we've got to be wary of, and it happens every year - a bit last year with AI, it happened a lot with the metaverse -, as soon as there's an emerging technology, suddenly every company agency pretends to be an expert. And they change their title from metaverse guru to AI guru, whatever it is… We, as an industry, have to embrace AI. We can't just be tour guides. We want to be an industry of creators, and create and shape what AI is going to do for our industry. But again, going back to your question, you won't see it yet in the advertising side of things. You may see it show up in maybe some of the Innovation categories, some of the design works - who knows, but it's coming. Most people are nervous, but obviously that’s not going to make our industry redundant. We have to learn how to tame, steer and influence it. And, as I said, I'll just allow us to do things that we couldn't do before and I'm excited about that as a creative person. 

You said that “creativity should have a seat at the top table” instead of “chasing some sort of hype cycle”, for instance “metaverse, metaverse, metaverse”. Do you think the advertising market is still guilty of this kind of short-termism mindset nowadays? 

We are conditioned to chase things that have hype cycles, a lot of our clients are, as well. I think the key is to be excited by things, but also take the time to work out how it's going to manifest itself. Yes, the whole world went crazy on metaverse. The hype cycle has reduced a bit, but there's still a massive world in immersive, AR [augmented reality] and VR [virtual reality]. Perhaps not at the pace that we thought. I'd say the same with AI, but the difference between metaverse and AI is that AI is having tangible applications right now. Back to your question, creatives have to have a seat at the table, and that is very much by not just having creatives run companies, but also understanding that we're not going to sit on the sidelines and watch a technology like AI devour and take over industry and be passive about that again. We have to be optimistic and insert ourselves in there - not whine or moan because our industry is being devoured. Because we can do things with this. That's what Mira Murati and I are gonna talk about. Tech innovations need our irreverence, illogical, lateral, ambitious brains ! As I said, unlikely scenarios, empathy, humanity all these different things into the equation can create wonderful things. So creativity needs to be at the highest table and we need to make decisions, as opposed to being further downstream.

How would you stay in touch with all those tech subjects? Are you still on a learning curve?

To be honest, one of the reasons I took this job was that I could go back to the drawing board and learn about things that I only was sort of half educated about or was reading about from arm's length. You know, this is the first time I've been intimidated and excited in 25 years. I loved everything that I did in my advertising. I loved Droga5 and what we did : my goal in Droga5 was to build the most influential creative agency in the world. But now, we live in a world where if you want to have global relevance and profound impact, you have to have technology baked into it, and it can't just be sort of a sidebar. And the beauty of Accenture is that it is fundamentally a tech company : they were talking about AI 10 years ago, they'd already written papers before it was trendy or being talked about : they really, really actually understand it. For me that's exciting because I'm surrounded by experts. I'm learning. Part of the reasons I didn't retire and took this job is because I thought a creative person needed to be inserting something that has so much momentum and influence, so the decision-making hierarchy would still take in consideration the end product and people. 

Which companies do you see as your competition? There’s always been this debate about consulting firms such as Accenture, Deloitte, Capgemini as opposed to the communication moguls, such as WPP, Publicis…

I think it is an old-fashioned debate because we’re competing against all of them. I think we're very privileged that we’re the only one that plays in all circles. If you look at the diversity of our relationship with clients and who we pitch against, to some extent, obviously we’re competing against advertising groups because they represent brands and marketing that are one part of our business, but also against Deloitte and such. But we see ourselves as the world's largest tech powered creative group because it is about the technology, but it's also about the creativity in the technology, obviously held together by data. I'm also lucky that I stepped into a model that was future facing in the sense that I wasn't held hostage by or anchored to a 100 year old legacy model that could sort of hold me back. It'll be three years for me in this role as CEO in september. Since I've been in this role, we bought about 15 different companies in much more of the sort of digital products and data space with some sprinklings of a few exceptional creative and digital media. Our job isn't to be in the traditional media space. That's not the game we need to be in, or want to be in or our clients want to be in. 

What are your ambitions in France?

I love the French market. For two years, I worked for Publicis [New York] and I am a big fan of Maurice [Lévy]. The French market is not necessarily a very big market, but it's a very important market. It's obviously dominated by a few players that have a lot of legacy and are very much relationship-based. I reckon our job isn't to try and out relationship people. Our job is to try and present a unique future phasing offering. We're much more focused on the whole customer journey. It doesn't just go from the marketing side of things. It goes through the customer service to e-commerce, the digital products... In the French market, we invested in dynamic new leadership in the whole area region, we've got some great new creative talents as well. About Peugeot, it's a great brand and we're very excited by the opportunity. We don't take it lightly. We want to earn our way into proving our worth. The French market is very important to us, because it's a specific market. There's a lot of very important industries. Yeah, I really want us to do well in that market. It’s early days, but I would say : watch this space !

Regarding Peugeot for example, do you see yourself in a long-term relationship ? Many in the industry deplore that clients are more unfaithful and volatile than ever…

That's happening globally but again, that's happening in the marketing spaces. CMOs are trying to solve epidemics or seismic issues, problems or opportunities with just campaigns. Also, the tenure of a CMO is short now. But if you have an offering that talks to every seat in the boardroom, not just the CMOs, then you get much more embedded in their business. Don't get me wrong. I love the marketing side, that's my background. I'm a storyteller through and through, but the best way I can preserve that is to understand, as much their supply chain or their customer service or their loyalty program is going to build things that actually make a real difference. Also what upsets me about the industry is the fact that many facets of the holding companies have outsourced the creativity in a pursuit of media. They have devalued relationships between brand and creative agencies within the client world because all they care about is : “How do I secure the media” ? So, it's no wonder that there's a lost mutual respect between a lot of CMOs and the agencies because they think it is just a “chop and change”, they don't believe in building relationships.

Would you consider buying agencies in France?

I don't think buying creative agencies is the thing that we need to do. I think that’s something we can scale up organically. 

Sometimes in advertising, people seem to be a bit conformists, copycats and for many years « purpose » campaigns have prevailed price-wise in Cannes. Do you think this frenzy is here to last or maybe it's time for reinvention?

I'm someone who cares very much about doing things that contribute to the world so I'm not anti purpose-led work. I think what happened was a lot of people just started doing purpose-led work, not because they cared about the purpose but because they cared about winning something with purpose. I think in my career and in Droga5, before it was trending, we did spend some of our time leaning into purpose-led things because I believe in that. That's who I am : my mother was an activist environmentalist. I think what happened is it became an easy tool, used for the prize, not the impact. But I don't want to ever think that companies don't care about contributing because I think every company should have a conscience and do what they can to contribute - but not in a cynical sense.

So this year, Cannes has added a humor category… 

It's a reflection of what's going on in society as well now. Everything's so PC [politically correct] and the humour, the wit have been squeezed out of everything… So I think it's a knee-jerk reaction to that and it's a shame that they had to do it, but I'll probably very much enjoy the fact that they did.

You are the most awarded creative in Cannes. What is your secret ingredient?

I'm so proud of the people I’ve worked with along the way. But you know, I hung up my creative title two and a half years ago and I think I've just always been very fascinated about creating things that had impact. I never wanted to have one style or a revision mirror. I didn't want to be typecast, to be just a TV guy or a print guy or a poster guy. Any medium is exciting for me. More than anything, I just love to make things that have an impact in the world. And if you do it with your imagination that’s such a privilege, isn't it? 

Do you have stuff that is really high on your to-do list during the week or is it just press conferences and panels?

Well, it’s a good chance to catch up with a lot of my global team and a lot of our global clients. But selfishly, I’m gonna get to see people that I worked with throughout my entire career from when I was 18, first starting in advertising. I can really meet my career in one bar, which is quite funny… But more importantly, I hope to come out more inspired about the promise of our industries. In Cannes is there to fill me up more than to let off steam or to network, cause I’m not really a networker. As long as creativity remains the epicenter of the Cannes Lions, I'll have faith in that Festival.