Paris Spotlight: Le Malaise

Political jitters, fiscal gloom and nervy money men have all contributed to a period of uncreative ennui in the Parisian ad industry. But all is not lost, a new digital-savvy approach among clients has already injected a bit of ooh-la-la into some campaigns. Joe Lancaster surveys the scene by the Seine…

As far as the advertising industry goes, the general feeling is less than gay in Paree. Frightened clients, an underperforming economy and the unknown immediate political future have been ganging up on the French creative scene like playground bullies, making for some distraught advertising people. “It’s been difficult,” says Frédéric Raillard, co-founder of Fred & Farid. “More and more you have cost controllers making the decisions. It’s a world of lawyers and cost controllers. We manage to do stuff, but it’s harder than it was ten years ago.”

Raillard believes his agency has an advantage in that its 2007 launch meant it was, “born in the crisis” and so had to deal with hard economic times from the beginning. It is one of the recent French success stories, having grown from four to 200 people across a group of five agencies (and they’re aiming for 10 – 12).

Bearing up in the face of gloom

One of Paris’ biggest agencies, BETC Euro RSCG, has also managed to weather the storms and produce some outstanding work as usual, including the TV commercial for Canal+, The Bear, which will surely win big at Cannes this year. But co-president and executive creative director, Stéphane Xiberras, isn’t impressed with the industry’s reaction to the challenges it has faced. “In this time of crisis we should have expected a surge of creativity and some risk taking, especially in the digital field, to try to emerge from an uninspiring advertising discourse. It would have been a great opportunity. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. The mutual trust between agencies and advertisers is losing its triple-A.”

Xiberras believes, like others, that a new wave of younger personnel at the top of clients’ ranks could be just what the doctor ordered to freshen up the stagnant ad scene. “I think there is a new generation of communication directors arriving and taking over in France,” he says. “They are more experienced and equipped with new communication tools, which is cool. Often older people in their 60’s doing these jobs seem to think that web, street and events are just the latest teenage fads and that [they are] something that can’t really become a business lever.”

Anne De Maupeou, chief creative officer of Eurobest’s Agency of the Year, Marcel, believes that the changes in clients’ personnel is helping to push the boundaries already. “They know everything. They are very mature about advertising – sometimes [they are] even better than we are. Clients now include some people who come from the agency business so it’s more and more a partnership and when you have the right partner, things can evolve very quickly,” she explains, enthusiastically.

Determination and digital ‘disaster’

On the production side, again it is dwindling budgets that have caused the most stress, according to Patrick Barbier, chief executive officer at Wanda. “The conditions have become much harder. We’ve reached the limit, I think, of what is possible to guarantee a certain level of quality,” he laments, although it’s not all doom and gloom, as his company has produced some slick work for Dior, Contrex and Orange, among others: “Overall I think that we have managed to do alright. The year was satisfying.”

One area Barbier is excited about is digital, as Wanda has completed several projects in the field in the last 12 months. “Some agencies in France are very determined and make interesting suggestions,” he says, citing DDB, BETC, Marcel, Fred & Farid and La Chose as examples. His partner and executive producer, Claude Fayolle is cautious not to get carried away: “We have to be careful because digital campaigns are sometimes produced on a trend and that creates disappointing content,” he says.

Digital campaigns make up 40 per cent of the business for the Fred & Farid Group, which boasts individual agencies to handle the different facets of new media including Furious Monkeys (digital) and Eddi&Son (mobile). “Digital by itself is an eco system. Clients, more and more, want to deal with specialists. Also it’s a way to avoid becoming the system we always criticised; big, boring networks,” explains Raillard.

In October, Fred & Farid opened its fifth agency, Kids Love Jetlag, which specialises in social networks and is compared to the UK’s We Are Social. At the daring launch party, streamed live online, the plug was pulled midway through a musical act. The crowd, a specially selected group of 500 VIPs and bloggers, and the group’s employees began spreading news of a ‘disaster’ via social networks. Once other agencies had joined in the ridiculing and the live stream’s audience had tripled, they turned the power back on and Kids Love Jetlag was born with a significant portion of the French industry in the delivery room. “We created our own bad buzz and all our enemies started to join in, killing us on the web. But they brought us an audience and at the top of the audience, almost 15,000 [media and advertising professionals], we released a spot launching our new social media company, that was based on playing with social media. Like, ‘fuck you!’” concludes a defiant Raillard.

Keep on dreaming

Many in France think the presidential election in April will have a huge bearing on advertising over the next few years, as will, in the shorter term, the 2012 Olympic Games and European Football Championship. But the general feeling is that the industry needs to find new blood, like CLM BBDO, which has just hired Paris’ youngest creative director – who could not be named at the time of going to press – and as BETC’s Xiberras sums up in his intentions for the coming year: “I believe in the power of talent. If you can attract it (I’m also talking about clients) and be the sexiest in your market, then you have the key. Like every year, we [BETC] will invest in people, talent, creativity in all its forms, basically, we will continue to dream. Because more than anything we’re paid to be dreamers, aren’t we?”