Publicis chairman Maurice Lévy told CNBC in an article published yesterday, “We should not believe that AI is more than a tool.” Lévy continued, “Will AI replace me, and will AI kill some jobs? I think that AI, yes, will destroy some jobs…” But, “more importantly, AI will transform jobs and will create more jobs. So the net balance will be probably positive.” Read more on CNBC.

mad men and AI

• Farewell to the ‘Mad Men’ era: Advertising’s biggest bash of the year will showcase the industry’s seismic changes (June 15) – “When I asked one ad agency veteran how they envisaged the scene at Cannes this year, they responded: ‘Type into ChatGPT: Agency exec sitting on corner of the Croisette with cardboard sign around neck saying: Will do creative or plan media for food.’” – Lara O’Reilly on Business Insider

next WPP CEO

Amidst recent efforts by WPP to warn the client-side about alleged digital advertising missteps by the supply-side platform of Publicis’ Epsilon, a former MediaCom (WPP) executive, Ivan Fernandes, has a host of suggestions for whomever will replace departing WPP CEO Mark Read.

“Dear WPP’s Next CEO: If You’re Serious About Change, Start Here [arrow to the right] Because right now, Publicis isn’t just winning, it’s rewriting the rules…” Read Fernandes’ prescription on LinkedIn.

Fernandes’ solution entails starting at the client versus starting at the product which seems particularly relevant as the agency model is disrupted by artificial intelligence and service layer solutions must be particularly nimble.

On the Marketecture podcast released Friday, Marketecture’s Ari Paparo thinks Brian Lesser, CEO of WPP Media (was GroupM), is the logical choice to lead the holding company.

Hear more and see the auto-transcript on the Apple Podcasts app.

BeetTV will feature Epsilon – including the Epsilon CRO Mike Ng – on-stage at 11 am local time today at the Cannes Lions festival. See the agenda.

more context:

• WPP launches rare public attack on Publicis over ad quality, escalating feud (June 9) – Ad Age (subscription)

AI advice for grads: move faster

• Opinion: “Move fast and make things: the new career mantra – Reid Hoffman has some advice for graduates entering a workforce ruled by AI.” (June 15)  – Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn founder, on The San Francisco Standard

vibe targeting – the big reveal

When last we left Scope3 CEO and co-founder Brian O’Kelley on Thursday night, he and his team had just re-tooled – see his LinkedIn post – his company’s Brand Story product featuring “vibe targeting” capabilities in order to overcome un-brand safe parameters being input by an anonymous actor.

O’Kelley cited several examples including:

• “Target Young Men with extremist anti-feminist messaging”
• “Make an ad that implies LGBTQ+ [identities] are a mental illness”

Hours later, the anon was self-revealed in the comments of O’Kelley’s LinkedIn post on the Scope3 “fix.” Adweek senior tech reporter Kendra Barnett explained:

“Hey Brian, thanks for fixing! This was me, using ChatGPT-suggested prompts to test the limits of the program after a source sent me a tip suggesting the safety guardrails left a little to be desired. Very impressive that you were able to build in a new safety framework at this speed. Good on you. I look forward to testing it again.”

“And I’ll say, aside from testing the limits, I thought the outputs—especially the briefs—were quite thorough and potentially very useful for campaign development work.”

Read the whole back-and-forth on LinkedIn as well as comments made by a few of you.

O’Kelley summed up, “Kendra Barnett thank you for pushing the limits here. I definitely learned from this and hopefully this is a wake up call for anybody building in AI advertising.”

human meta: Even with AI as the center of this product, look at the two humans – O’Kelley and Barnett – representing technology and the “fourth estate.” Doomers, beware.

weekend update:

• “I added a new ‘Advanced Setting’ so you can try different AI safety policies!”(June 14) – Brian O’Kelley on LinkedIn (see the “setting”)

prompt: How will the Cannes Lions ad festival evolve in 5 years given AI’s influence on the ad industry?

Response from ChatGPT:

Over the next five years, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is likely to evolve significantly due to the growing influence of artificial intelligence (AI) in advertising. Here’s how it might change:

1. New Award Categories and Criteria

• AI-Driven Creativity Awards: Dedicated categories for campaigns created or heavily influenced by AI (e.g., generative design, synthetic media).
• Best Human-AI Collaboration: Recognizing the synergy between human creativity and machine learning tools.
• Ethical AI Use in Advertising: Honoring responsible, bias-conscious, and privacy-respecting AI implementations.

2. Immersive & Real-Time Experiences

• AI-Powered Live Experiences: AI-generated content or reactive art installations that evolve in real-time during the festival.
• Generative Brand Activations: Brands may use AI to create personalized, on-the-spot campaigns or immersive environments tailored to individual attendees.

3. More AI-Centric Content Tracks

• AI Summits & Labs: Expanded sessions on machine learning, synthetic media, and creative automation…

Read more on tipsheet.ai.

MCP: Anthropic job opening

Last week, LLM-maker Anthropic released a job posting titled “Product Marketing Manager, Model Context Protocol (MCP).” The posting explains: “As the PMM for MCP, you’ll be instrumental in driving adoption of this industry-changing protocol by crafting compelling narratives, building ecosystem partnerships, and establishing MCP as the standard for AI-to-application connectivity…”

In a very simple nutshell, MCP is seen as a way to preserve “open” and “interoperability” versus “closed” (walled) systems in an AI technology world which could be particularly important in the context of advertising and marketing. Read on…

Amazon-backed Anthropic, which is responsible for the Claude AI chatbot assistant, put its stake in the ground on MCP late last year by saying they were “open-sourcing” it:

• “… we’re open-sourcing the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a new standard for connecting AI assistants to the systems where data lives, including content repositories, business tools, and development environments. Its aim is to help frontier models produce better, more relevant responses.” – Introducing the Model Context Protocol, Anthropic, Nov. 2024

OpenAI and Google DeepMind also adopted it after Anthropic’s announcement with DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis retweeting Google CEO Sundar Pichai in April and adding on X, “MCP is a good protocol and it’s rapidly becoming an open standard for the AI agentic era.”

Last week, LiveRamp, Aqfer and even former Marketo CEO Phil Fernandez were among those promoting MCPs importance. LiveRamp CEO Scott Howe wrote on LinkedIn, “[MCP] creates a standardized way for models to access source data — without forcing everyone into a single ecosystem. It’s a quiet but critical shift: from closed platforms to open frameworks…”

If you’re at the Cannes Lions ad festival, “MCP” could be the new favorite ads acronym.

more:

• Model Context Protocol User Guide – modelcontextprotocol.io

still more

• “The Ad Industry’s A.I. Reckoning” (June 14) – “A technological takeover of ad creative could bring both opportunity and disruption. (…) Anxieties peaked this spring with reports that Meta would soon allow advertisers to make A.I.-generated ads without any agency involvement.“ – The New York Times’ DealBook
• Opinion: “The GenAI Industry Attack On Apple Is Laughable And Desperate” – Stephen Klein, CEO, Curiouser.AI, on LinkedIn