From its beginnings in 1926 as a creative hot shop in Montmartre, to its international expansion, embrace of data and technology, and its position today as one the industry’s leading holding company—Publicis has gone through some transformations over the past 100 years.
But one tradition hasn’t changed: the annual Wishes. And to ring in the new century, who better to create them than Publicis Conseil, the agency built by its founder, Marcel Bleustein Blanchet?
Blending live action and real actors with the latest in AI production, from the Groupe’s proprietary platforms and tools, they tell the story of the pioneering spirit, endless innovations and resilience that enabled the Groupe to withstand war, fire, economic downturns, technological revolutions and a global pandemic during its first hundred years and positions it to continue to lead and reinvent the industry as it enters its next century.
“2026 will be a very special year for us, as we end our first century,” said Arthur Sadoun, chairman and CEO Publicis Groupe.
“A century where we have turned a small hot shop from Montmartre into the industry’s largest holding company over the last two years.
“A century that has seen the Groupe rise from the ashes—sometimes literally—three times and reinvented itself many more.
“It is this spirit of resilience that has defined us for 100 years and that is captured in our Wishes: a lion never gives up.
“2026 will also be the year where we enter our second century, the beginning of which will undoubtedly be defined by the rise of AI. This film is a human, historical and technological odyssey, that blends our best creative minds with our unmatched capabilities in AI production to embody our belief that the future of AI is our people.”
If you aren’t too busy this Friday afternoon, below you can watch the full length documentary on 100 years of Publicis, featuring Elizabeth Badinter, Maurice Lévy and Arthur Sadoun.
About the film:
‘A Lion Never Gives Up’ blends live action, GenAI 2D and 3D imaging to reconstitute scenes from the past, reducing the price of scene reconstruction and opening up new creative possibilities.
A quarter of the film is live action footage, with the rest created by AI, drawing on photos, films and documents from Publicis’ own archives.
AI prompt artists and AI archivists managed, sourced and catalogued both the volume of real images needed for a project of this size—4,500 for 150 individual shots—and the AI-generated ones.
In a traditional pipeline, once you reach the editing stage, everything is locked in. Here, everything remained open: each shot could be regenerated from scratch.
Credits:
Publicis Conseil
Global CEO/CCO Leo – CEO/CCO Publicis Conseil – CCO Publicis Groupe France : Marco Venturelli
Agathe Bousquet – Présidente Publicis Groupe France et Présidente de Publicis Conseil
Alexis Ben Behe – Directeur de Création Executif / Executive Creative Director
Maud Robaglia – Directrice de Création / Creation Director
Gurvan Prioul – Creative & UX Design Director / Directeur Créatif et UX Design
Hamza Ben Maadoum – Directeur Artistique Junior
Production : Prodigious Paris
CEO Prodigious : Christopher Thiery
MD Prodigious : Caroline Petruccelli
Producteur Exécutif : Yann Dubois
Post producteur : Cédric Herbet
VFX creative Director : Nico Vogel
DOP : Nicolas LOIR
Chef opérateur son cinéma : Damien PERROLAZ
Directrice de production : Marie Caron
Son : Prodigious
Producteur son : Martin Sumeire
Mix, sound design : KOUZ
Le documentaire “L’avenir est l’affaire de Publicis »
Réalisation Stanislas Valroff
Production : Eddy Story
Tourné au Studio XR Prodigious
