This year’s annual Wishes from Publicis is not humorous. Maurice Lévy and Arthur Sadoun are not its protagonists – and jokesters. It’s a proud history film told by Edith Piaf, and starring the Publicis’ lion as the company’s metaphor, that documents Publicis’ history of achievements and its overriding attitude – Whatever happens, the Lion never gives up.
The centenary film, created by Publicis Conseil, Cannes Lions Agency of the Year 2025, traces the story of Publicis 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 the industry’s leading holding company.
It’s a story of the company’s resilience and reinvention, from rebuilding after the 1972 fire to Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet’s role in the French Resistance, his pioneering work introducing radio advertising to France, and his discovery of Edith Piaf. It presents a company whose pioneering spirit, endless innovations and resilience enabled the agency to withstand war, fire, economic downturns, technological revolutions and a global pandemic during its first hundred years. And it’s a statement of the company’s ability to continue to lead and reinvent the industry whatever the future holds.
Accompanying the film is a half-hour documentary on 100 years of Publicis, featuring Elizabeth Badinter, Maurice Lévy and Arthur Sadoun.
Arthur Sadoun, chairman and CEO Publicis Groupe, commented, “2026 will be a very special year for us, as we end our first century. 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.”
About the film:
A unique ‘hybrid’ project
A Lion Never Gives Up blends live action, GenAI 2D & 3D imaging to reconstitute scenes from our 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.
A huge volume of visual assets
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.
A reinvented editing process:
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:
Creative Agency: Publicis Conseil
Global CEO & CCO Leo – CEO & CCO Publicis Conseil & CCO Publicis Groupe France: Marco Venturelli
President of Publicis Groupe France & President of Publicis Conseil: Agathe Bousquet
Executive Creative Director: Alexis Ben Behe
Creative Director: Maud Robaglia
Creative & UX Design Director: Gurvan Prioul
Junior Art Director: Hamza Ben Maadoum
Production: Prodigious Paris
CEO: Christopher Thiery
Managing Director: Caroline Petruccelli
Executive Producer: Yann Dubois
Post Producer Cédric Herbet
VFX Creative Director: Nico Vogel
DOP: Nicolas Loir
DoP: Damien Perrolaz
Production Director: Marie Caron
Sound: Prodigious
Sound Producer: Martin Sumeire
Mix & Sound Design: KOUZ
Publicis Documentary Director: Stanislas Valroff
Documntary Producer: Eddy Story
Filmed at Studio XR Prodigious
