One Year Later, Publicis Groupe Has No Regrets About 'Eliminating' Awards Shows

The company stuck to its promises—with some major exceptions

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Will Publicis Groupe be present at this year’s Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity? That depends on who you ask.

Earlier this month, one of the festival’s newsletters welcomed Publicis back into the fold just under 12 months after the 80,000-strong network announced that it would be “eliminating all award/trade shows for the next year” in order to help fund its new internal platform Marcel.

Now the holding company wants to clear the air: Yes, at least 84 employees will be at Cannes this year, including nearly 50 executives attending meetings hosted “by their clients and by other industry partners;” Yes, some of those meetings will come at the group’s expense; And yes, 399 campaigns created by Publicis agencies will be up for awards.

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