A Visit to Publicis

As you may have read in the previous entry my work on the history of French advertising agencies began in graduate school as it was my dissertation topic. Before I left for France on that first research trip I had worked for several months reading nearly everything I could find on the topic. This plan had a mixture of good news and bad news. The bad news was that there was not much scholarly work written on the subject: as a result I had to search methodically to find anything. Of course, this was also good news as it meant that I was entering a field with few other historians with whom I would compete. As a result, I could set the standard, at least for American historians on this topic.

I did find the memoirs of a French advertising executive, Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet. This was a gold mine for at that time (1991) there few, if any, such memoirs available for my period. Bleustein-Blanchet, an autodidact, founded, in 1927, a one-man advertising agency in Montmartre, Paris, and named it Publicis. Over the next sixty-some years Bleustein-Blanchet built his agency into one of the largest in Europe and the second largest in France. He was a lot of things: a showman, a charmer, a social chameleon, and a tireless worker. These attributes served him well in the advertising profession. Publicis came to be known as France’s “quality agency” and an agency that innovated in terms of its management and product. As a result, I began my research with a study of the firm, as a type of anchor on which to base the rest of my work.

Before I left on my first research trip I sent a letter to the 85-year old patriarch of the agency summarizing my research interests and that I would like to interview him when I came to Paris (lesson: always start at the top). A month later I received a letter from Bleustein-Blanchet’s nephew, Claude Marcus. Marcus, Vice-President and head of Publicis’ international operations wrote that he would be pleased to meet with me and that I should contact him while in Paris. And, so I did. I met with Marcus seven times, each interview session lasting an hour as I learned much about Publicis from an important insider—he had joined the firm in 1946 and had witnessed its enormous expansion. Oh, and did I mention that Publicis’ office is on the Champs Elysées? In his “penthouse,” sixth-floor office I could see the Arc de Triomphe over his shoulder. It is safe to say that I had never felt as out of place as I did for those sessions, a peasant from Ohio in the heart of France, being given valuable time from an important business executive for a nascent project. The history of Publicis became an integral part of my dissertation. I had also written entries on Publicis and Bleustein-Blanchet for the “Encyclopedia of Advertising” published three years ago.

Fast forward fourteen years later for this trip. I wanted to update and revise my dissertation. Moreover, I wanted to expand my sections on Publicis. In late December I wrote to Maurice Lévy, now head of Publicis, announcing my return to Paris and that I would like to talk to him about the firm (always start at the top). I included my dissertation chapters on Publicis and also the two, slighter encyclopedia articles. Two weeks later I received an email from Monsieur Lévy saying that I was again welcome to visit the agency and that two top executives would be happy to meet with me. While I was in Tours doing battle with Heathers I arranged another visit to Publicis via email.

On Thursday, I returned to Publicis for the first time since 1992. I, of course, had changed: less hair and more wrinkles. Publicis had changed as well. In the years under Lévy’s leadership, Publicis had become the fourth largest advertising conglomerate in the world with forty thousand employees spread over one hundred countries. I could add other superlatives but you get the idea. The main office remained in the same position, right on the Place de l’Etoile. I scrubbed and shaved that morning and put on my finest thrift-store suit and took the Métro to the agency. I must admit that I was feeling a bit nervous. I entered the foyer and gave my name to the women at the desk (fearing, unrealistically that I might get the same reception I received at the realtor in Paris when I asked for my key: I don’t know anything about you) and she nodded and called “upstairs” and spoke a few rapid-fire phrases that I did not quite follow and she gave me a temporary badge and directed me to the elevators.

A few others awaited for elevators and as we got in and pushed our floors I seemed to notice that when I pressed “six” that the others’ eyes seemed to scrutinize me a bit closer (they all pressed lesser floors, the dwellings of cubicle drones and lower middle managers) and wonder, at least so I thought, who I was. Publicis television commercials played in monitors above the number banks. The sixth floor had changed little from what I could recall at the last visit. Thick, cream-colored carpeting and dark black paneling with black leather chairs awaited me in the foyer with a podium at the end where I gave my name. I was asked to wait a moment and a few seconds later the Executive Vice President of Corporate Communications, Eve Magnan, came out to greet me. We exchanged the briefest of pleasantries and then went to the office of Bertrand Siguier, Vice-President of Publicis (and basically the number two man after Lévy at Publicis proper). Siguier, a trim and athletic man in his late fifties had actually been hired by Bleustein-Blanchet himself in the 1960s, and has worked his way up the corporate ladder.

Our discussion began in French but I noticed over time that we used French less and less and English more and more (as they politely realized the meeting would go faster that way). Both were quite interested in my project, though Siguier thought a better and more important story was the history of Publicis from 1969 to the present rather than my earlier period. Since he had been an important participant in that second period of expansion I could understand why. Unfortunately, nearly all my work and understanding of French advertising takes place before 1969 so I told him that could indeed be my next project. He nodded his acquiescence and then turned to look at the chapter I had mailed him. This particular chapter was a history of the firm, 1946-1969 that I had crafted from multiple sources and the loss of much blood from my forehead as it dripped on the keyboard some years ago. Some readers know that I am not prone to self-aggrandizement but Siguier actually told me that they were many things in this chapter that he did not know and that it was the best thing that he had read on the firm (to be fair, almost nothing has been written about the firm, save for sketchy journalistic overviews so it was not as if he had a lot to compare my work to).

He also stated that other agencies had commissioned “histories” of their firms but those were so usually so “rosy” (or perhaps full of b.s.) that they were not interesting reading. Furthermore, he said he would share that chapter with Lévy the next day as they were both leaving on a business trip. We talked about the firm a few more minutes and I certainly have to say that I enjoyed the conversation as I have rarely met anyone who had more than a passing interest in my own academic work. Siguier found some names for me in his rolodex of some older, retired executives for me to contact. I thanked him for his time and left with Eve Magnan for her office where she helped me to set up interviews with some of the retired executives that Siguier had found for me. Afterwards, via a PowerPoint presentation on her desk she gave me a contemporary overview of the firm and its global reach. Publicis had certainly changed in eighty years. She also found Claude Marcus’s home phone number and gave it to me. I called him later that day, the first time I had spoken to him since my last trip (though we had exchanged some messages via mail but our last had been ten years past). He is over eighty now, and retired, but he still has an active interest in the firm that his uncle founded. I will be meeting with him on Tuesday and I am sure a later entry will discuss our meeting.

One last thing I have to note is how well the firm has always treated me. There really was no reason they had to be so accommodating. Even this last meeting was proof that I was doing nothing of great value to the firm today but here were two executives taking no little time to help me, an American “outsider” with my project that eventually may find publication and an audience of fifty other interested academics. I am sure an American firm might do the same thing as well: I do not know. However, I would opine that the French corporate world does have a more humanistic tradition in terms of the background of their executives (while American executives tend to come more from engineering backgrounds) and perhaps that is the reason for their interest.