The CMO is a dying role, says Digitas' Amy Lanzi

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Nilay Patel** (0:44)
Hello and welcome to Decoder. I'm Nilay Patel, Editor-in-Chief of The Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems. We've got a special Decoder today. I had the chance to talk with Amy Lanzi, the CEO of Digitas North America, in front of a live audience at the Uber Villa at Cannes Lyon Advertising Festival in the south of France. I know, it's a hard gig, but I do it for you. Amy's been on Decoder three times now, and she's one of my very favorite people to chat with. She is clear-eyed about what the advertising industry really is and does for brands, and what all that money slashing around the ad-supported internet really accomplishes. In fact, you'll hear her say directly that she thinks the traditional Chief Marketing Officer role is done for, that her job is driving business results using data and analytics.
That might sound straightforward, but it was a shocking statement at Cannes, which is where the entire advertising industry gathers every year, drinks rosé, and convinces itself of outrageous nonsense. This year, the big trends everyone was talking about were creators and, of course, AI, and Amy and Digitas' parent company, Publicis, weren't holding back when it came to calling out the AI nonsense for what it is. Publicis actually put out an ad before Cannes, listing all of the promises being made about AI when it comes to advertising. So I asked Amy about that, and what AI might actually be good for, beyond just generating slop and slop headlines. After all, Meta and the rest of the big platforms were all at Cannes, talking about generating more and more ads with AI, something that threatens almost every other company in the industry. Of course, we also talked about the creator economy and how all of the creators at Cannes were openly calling themselves marketers, essentially turning themselves into small ad agencies of their own. On top of that, the biggest creators in the world almost always end up launching their own products, something Amy and Digitas see as an opportunity, because those companies will need operational scale if they're going to be successful over time. There's a lot in this one. Like I said, Amy is as sharp as they come, and I really enjoy talking to her about how the money really works. Okay, Amy Lanzi, CEO of Digitas North America, live at Cannes. Here we go.
Hello, everybody, I'm Nilay Patel, the editor and chief of The Verge and the host of Decoder.

**Amy Lanzi** (2:56)
Hi, Amy Lanzi, CEO of Digitas, part of Publicis Groupe.

**Nilay Patel** (3:00)
I'm very excited to be here with Amy. Amy, we have to stop meeting like this. We only talk during Decoder podcasts.

**Amy Lanzi** (3:05)
I know.
We do. We have to do this more. We both live in New York. We should get together more, like IRL.

**Nilay Patel** (3:10)
Yeah, we only travel a long ways to talk to each other in front of live audiences, which is wonderful. Thank you all for being here. Thanks to Uber for having us. I have a lot to talk to you about. It seems like every year we hang out, and the entire advertising industry is in a new form of chaos. That chaos doesn't really get resolved, we just move on to the next form of chaos.
This year, it's AI.
I don't think that's a surprise to anyone in this room. Everywhere here at Cannes, the conversation is about AI. Let's just get started. Publicis put out what you would call a fake ad, a documentary ad. It's called The Wrong Promises, and it is basically just a series of vignettes of promises people are making in pitches, including, you don't have to pay us until you win a lion, which is incredible, and it says this is real at the bottom.

**Amy Lanzi** (3:54)
Yes.

**Nilay Patel** (3:55)
Tell me about what you are hearing in these rooms that are leading to these crazy AI promises getting made.

**Amy Lanzi** (4:01)
Thank you for bringing up our fun video, and it was really designed to stimulate conversations like this.