Publicis Groupe Introduced Marcel in the US This Week. But What, Exactly, Is It?

Marcel is here. Near the end of March, Publicis Groupe CEO Arthur Sadoun announced in an internal video that the holding company was accelerating the global launch of its AI-driven connectivity platform Marcel, beginning with the U.S. this week, citing the need to stay connected to meet both employee and client needs. Publicis Groupe chief strategy officer Carla Serrano told Adweek that a beta version of Marcel was introduced in the U.K. last summer and optimized throughout the year. The company had previously planned on a global launch for June. "We were monitoring U.K. usage. When COVID-19 started to hit, usage went up," Serrano said. [kickout id="1"] After being introduced in the U.S. this Monday, the platform hit over 50% engagement within two days, with 14,010 activated profiles in U.S. and U.K., according to Serrano. There was 53% adoption in the U.S. and 72% in the U.K. To incentivize employees to opt-in and use the program, Publicis Groupe pledged to donate $10 per employee who signs up to the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Response Fund. A Publicis Groupe employee who spoke to Adweek under the condition of anonymity expressed appreciation for the donations to the organization. "It's also nice to see that [Marcel] actually exists after so much fanfare and gossip about it being a waste of money. As it stands, it's a pretty simple version (at least in the U.S.), but I'm hopeful they will roll out some new features," they said. "There isn't really an 'AI' to it yet." Publicis Groupe maintains that increased engagement should help the platform's performance. "From an AI standpoint, the more connectivity, the smarter it gets," Serrano said. [article_summary section="1"]Marcel includes a feature called Jobs, publishing openings within Publicis Groupe. In the U.K. launch, these were made available internally to Publicis Groupe employees a week before the jobs were posted externally. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, such opportunities have been limited to existing Publicis Groupe employees. Another feature, called Marcel Gigs, rolled out with the U.S. expansion and offers temporary assignments to Publicis Groupe employees. "It's a way to match people and create a culture of engagement, hand raising and career expansion," Serrano said. The Publicis Groupe employee characterized Gigs as the most exciting element of the platform. "You don't get paid extra for them, but right now, I think they are great because people working on clients hit hard by COVID (i.e. huge travel clients) can find work elsewhere in the company," they said. "I'm grateful for anything Publicis does to avoid laying people off." Other features include Daily Digest, which provides employees with content around Publicis Groupe news and updates related to the coronavirus pandemic. [kickout id="3"] "A lot of our work right now is putting together scenario plans for crisis and recovery. When you think about the tracking of COVID-19 right now, to some degree, agencies in China have a good idea of what recovery looks like now that they're back in offices," Serrano said, adding that Publicis Groupe is working with a lot of intelligence from those agencies. "One of the things that we’ve launched is the COVID-19 Knowledge Hub," she added, which includes sharing lessons learned from areas such as China and Italy at different stages of the pandemic curve across the network. "The information as a group and connectivity is really important, because of the feelings of isolation [and the] disconnectedness of people," she said. "Marcel can be the hub for leadership news, group news, and healthcare and wellness benefits." In addition to a current partnership with meditation app Headspace, Serrano said Publicis Groupe is pursuing additional partnerships, including a bespoke workout program through luxury fitness company Equinox and training seminars through LinkedIn. Keeping Marcel safe for all [article_summary section="2"]The platform, though highly touted, still has some early adopters in the U.S. wondering what it is, exactly. [kickout id="2"] Two employees at different Publicis Groupe agencies who spoke to Adweek under the condition of anonymity expressed skepticism about the usefulness of the platform, at least as it pertains to them personally. "It's only been a few days, but it looks more like a place to share success stories and news, and less like a space to find projects to work on at our sister agencies," one employee told Adweek. "Signing up was extremely intuitive and easy—so no problems there—it just wasn't really what I was expecting, which is neither good or bad. We'll have to see how my own use evolves over time." "When you build your profile, it feels like a dating app," another employee at a Publicis Groupe agency told Adweek, explaining that it included "interests, skills and pictures." "It seems like just another content platform," they added, stating it currently included a lot of volunteer opportunities. "I just don’t use it; I haven’t found why I would use it yet," they said, adding that it may have more use for those with more client-side roles. The employee expressed concerns that it could be misused for "inappropriate outreach," including behavior bordering on or crossing over into harassment, claiming that had been an issue with the U.K. trial version of the platform. "The men who built it, built it like a dating platform," they said. "Women weren’t in the core of the design process, so it wasn’t designed to protect women. It was a glaring oversight." Serrano said Publicis Groupe would put measures in place to protect against such misuse. "Right now, the community piece isn’t up and running," she said. "We would put guardrails around that. It's closely monitored. It's an AI platform, but it's a people-led AI platform." She added that Publicis Groupe was working to ensure it had "unbiased profiles that allow connectivity" while excluding items such as gender from inclusion as a feature line that gets put into the algorithm. "We ensure that every gig and match that happens goes through our talent resource taskforce," she explained. "If someone raises their hand for a gig, it gets sent to the task force, which double-checks things that people think are appropriate." "As best as we can, the task force consists of people that have come from our HR and talent team, and we've made sure that there's diverse representation. There is hyper-consciousness as we look into a workforce that has more diversity out there, that there’s dialogue as well in terms of the unconscious bias that might exist." Serrano explained that Marcel was internally focused at the moment but would eventually extend to allow clients more connectivity. "In the U.K. version, there is something called a Client Brief," she explained. "It's not something we’re touting right now," she added, explaining that clients did have a degree of initial gateway access for the global launch. "The way that we think about Marcel today is that it's a new way of working. That has been our focus," adding that Publicis Groupe will open up the "client concierge" aspect of the platform at a later time.