Right. Good morning, everybody. I'm Julien Roch, in charge of European Media Research at Barclays. I also cover the agencies globally. With me today, I have the extreme pleasure of talking for about 30- 35 minutes with Philippe Krakowsky, the CEO of Interpublic. Philippe has been CEO since the beginning of the year, but he was CEO of the company before that and CEO of Mediabrands before that. So Philippe has been at IPG since 2002. So he's as forgotten more about agencies and advertising that I have ever known. So Philippe, thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to be with us. I'll start with almost the mandatory short-term trading question, and then we can go to more strategic things. So how is the environment in Q2 now that some economies have truly reopened, like the U.K., the U.S., China, for instance? How is the mood among advertisers? Thank you for having me, Julien. Look, it's good to see you, and I appreciate being asked. I think that the environment clearly has improved and continues to improve, right? From the beginning of the year until now, I think you heard our tone change even from the point in February where we shared the Q4 2020, and then when we put out our first quarter results. I think in February, we were still measured. We still felt that there was uncertainty. What I think we shared with the investor community was a sense that we had confidence in the things that we can control, our offerings, our people, the relationships with the clients, but that the macro, there was uncertainty in those areas that we cannot control. Whether that was the virus, whether that was the vaccination program, stimulus, things of that nature. And so there's clearly been a shift. We knew that it was a question of when we would get back to growth, not if we would get back to growth. And I think that whatever it is, mid-April and then until now, we've got a strong Q1. We've got clarity. We've told you all what we think we can deliver and accomplish this year with organic of five to six for the calendar year. So I think that it's both more confidence and, to some extent, more visibility. And then conversations with clients are clearly bearing that out. So I would say there's more of an investment mindset. It's sector by sector, but all clients are clearly feeling better, feeling a greater sense of engagement. And we know there are a few markets around the world where the situation in terms of the health crisis is very challenging. I was on the phone a few days ago with the head of one of our agencies in India. And so you have to understand and be respectful of the fact that there, we're still in maintenance mode looking after our people. But across the board, client sector, we saw quarter-to-quarter improvement. International region, we saw that. And so I think you see that confidence in our expectations for the year. Very good. If I move to pitching, so we're almost at the halfway stage in 2021. I mean, a month to go. The year started strongly in terms of big pitches, but announcement seems to have abated. So do you think we'll be Mediapalooza 3, a big year of pitches? And what are the biggest pitches out there and your position into them? Wow. Yes, Palooza is a big word, right? It's like a big party. I think it's funny that people choose to interpret it that way, and we have seen over the last few years, every few years, that cycle of very large pitches, which I think was, in many ways, a reflection of the changes that had been transforming the market, much more digital, a greater focus on the need for technology and data in the offerings, so I don't think that we are at Palooza level this year. I don't think we will get to it. I think what we're seeing is during the course of the year last year, there was definitely a reluctance to go through a process that is very complex and can be disruptive because there was already so much that people were mitigating against inside the business in terms of just battening down and getting through the challenges of 2020. We're seeing a pickup. I'd say we're seeing it in probably three parts of the space. One is we are continuing to see a fair number of media pitches, which are complex, generally speaking, global in nature. They involve a lot of the offerings, a lot of the various expertise that bridges media, technology, data. We're seeing, I think, a fair number of pitches, again, in the fully integrated offering space, where for us, for example, recently, there was news around Cigna, which was a global network, a digital specialty network, a media agency, technology and data infrastructure, and some specialty agencies. So there's activity there. And then there's some activity, I think, in kind of the more digitally focused building a brand in this new digital sort of world or ecosystem. So we're seeing quite a bit. I think that we will see it play out during the back half of this year, and then it will also spill over in the next year as clients are asking themselves, given everything that's happened in the last 15 months, given the need to solve for the acceleration of some of these trends, am I fit for purpose in my e-commerce strategy and offerings? Is my media, or kind of, is my go-to-market getting me maximal, I think, effectiveness really in this digital ecosystem that's very complex and sometimes a bit opaque? So I think we're seeing them in those areas. We'll see them continue to pick up, but not sort of, as you said, not sort of to the point where it's a wild party. But I think we'll keep it. It'll be picking up through the back half of this year and then into next year. And for us, net- net, we see a lot of opportunity. So generally, there's a lot of net new. So we think that it allows us to showcase our offering, and we're seeing more opportunities to pick up than to have to defend. Great. Thank you for that. Changing subject, healthcare, which has been a strength for IPG over the years. So can you explain your offering in healthcare? Give us some details if you can, I don't know, biggest agencies, percentage of revenue, and why it has been so good for IPG for a while now. Wow. Okay. So I'm trying to figure out, so at the most macro level, I'd say, yes, it's a hair over 25% of net revenue. It is very distributed and very embedded throughout the portfolio, right, and so what you have with us is you've got two very powerful specialty agencies, FCB Health and McCann Health, and they do more of the professional work. They do more of the, as I say, more specialized work where you are interacting with specific kinds of circumstances, whether that's a clinical trial, whether that's interactions with pharmacists or the sales force, as well as some of the more, as it were, sort of standard strategy, messaging, definition of audiences, but it's all through our portfolio. A big part of the success that Mediabrands has had in the last three, four, five years has been to build out and to win scale healthcare and pharma clients. Within the marketing services agencies, Weber Shandwick is a large global healthcare practice, and now Golin has built one, and MRM, which does relationship marketing and a lot of the digitally enabled marketing, whether that's commerce or whether that's business transformation, those all participate in the space. I think that for us, it's quite comprehensive. It's across the group. I think that what we saw that appealed to us about the space is that it went in a direction that was consistent with some of the strategic decisions that we were taking. Do you need more specialized skill sets? Do you need the technology or the analytics competencies? Is it a set of clients who are more sophisticated and wanting to be very precise in who they reach? They have some constraints, whether it's regulatory constraints. You want to get the information to people, but there's the need to really be respectful of privacy. So we saw a lot of characteristics in the space that we thought lined up with a more modern or more future-facing offering. And then I would say to you that I do think that it is going to continue to be an attractive space, I guess, for us or for the sector, for both. So for the sector, I think 15 months of pandemic, a lot of focus on health, a real sense that the industry has rallied and done a great deal to help us collectively get through this. So I think that reputationally, the industry is in a strong place. Historically, their pipeline is strong in terms of a lot of R&D for which they will need the kind of help that we provide. So I think that sets the stage for continued growth macro. And then for us specifically, we've been taking share for a number of years. And so I think that we'll get the benefit of both that overall tailwind, but then also the fact that we're very strong there. And it connects very well into the infrastructure we've built and the strategic actions we've taken around data and tech. That's a good transition to my next question on data and tech. IPG's technology offering, could you explain what assets you have, how they fit together, what they do, and why does that give you a competitive advantage? I mean, my understanding is that Acxiom is your core data layer. Kinesso provides the technology application, and Matterkind is your new addressable media activation solution. Agencies' technology offering are complex and fluid and changing. I might have missed something in my description of your offering. If you could remind investors what you have, how it fits together, and why it is a competitive advantage for IPG. Thank you. No, I mean, look, I think you've laid a very good sort of groundwork there. I think those are a lot of the core or the foundational pieces. I guess I would sort of take a step back from that, and I would say to you that one of the things we did going back some time when you began to see the very significant growth in digital channels and the further fragmentation that that was creating in the ways that you can engage with information if you're a consumer, the ways you share that information, as you'll remember, we took a look very early on at Facebook to understand what was going on in that space. And so you start seeing the need for digital skill sets to be embedded everywhere in your organization. The first step for us was to not silo digital, but to put digital capabilities and to challenge our operators, regardless of what they did, with building digital into the company. I think that was the first step. Then we began to kind of organically develop, whether it was search capabilities inside of media, whether it was programmatic capabilities inside of media, but also, as I said, MRM. Now you begin to have digital native agencies, an MRM, an R/GA, a media offering with these very strong digital capabilities. The pace quickens. We built our own data stack initially. We found it competitive to win large, particularly media assignments because the scale of investment on the client side is significant there. The amount of signal that you can pull back, you're putting so many messages out through these very sizable investments in media budgets. So for us, those were the logical places. We were winning big assignments like a LEGO in media, like an Amazon with our own stack. But we did take a very significant step sort of above and beyond our organic strategy with Acxiom. And for us, that was a sense that scale data management, so handling of first-party data at scale in a way that was very sophisticated, very safe, was important and that building that would take time. And so for us, Acxiom is that foundational layer. They do, as I say, data management for very, very large clients where they architect the sort of foundational data layer for their business, and then they handle all of the data for many of the largest financial services companies in the world, some large automotive, some big-scale tech and telcos. Those are also the industries that I think are better prepared for this new world. So that's the foundational layer, and then also what came with was a core data set, InfoBase, which outside of the really massive data sets that you find inside the walled gardens, was to our mind a very powerful asset that gives us a spine to build these data and tech-enabled solutions for clients, then, as you say, we took some of the engineering teams and the data and tech that we've been building inside of media and some of the engineering that was inside of Acxiom. That's combined. That's the Kinesso layer. So that's where we create software and applications that allow the data to be pulled up or queried or acted upon across our ecosystem. Matterkind is where it gets activated, and more and more media is addressable. So we think that more and more clients, as there's more inventory, more opportunity, will want to engage with consumers in these very precise ways where you have accountability. You can begin to see whether it's driving specific outcomes. You know you're reaching the right people, so you can increase as much effectiveness as efficiency. So those are the core layers. And then Kinesso has got a behavioral science team that is informing the work that's done at the more traditional, as it were, marketing services agencies. So we're trying to get more and more of the offering connected to this. And then there's a marketing technology layer as well because we want not just to be able to activate and to engage with clients on the ad tech side, but also in their marketing technology activity and with all those platforms. And then, lastly, there's a production layer, which we call Craft, which is quite robust, but still in the process of being built out because you want the data to inform a lot of the kind of the lower funnel, the creative activity that is more what we would have seen in the display pop-up in the world where we saw maybe creative manifestations in the digital domain that can be more tailored, more built at scale. So that's kind of how it all comes together for us. I don't know if that is. I'm sure you always have interesting and thoughtful questions, so I'd lay that out. No, thank you very much for that. That was clear. I suppose, do you feel you have enough of a differentiation with the other agencies, or is Publicis' acquisition of Epsilon something that's not too dissimilar and therefore it's more about execution than the technical capabilities? Or do you [mean] WPP's launching Choreograph? So again, is everybody has similar capabilities, there's not a massive differentiation, and therefore it's about having better people, better execution? Or do you feel that your technology and architecture is strong enough that it does make a point of differentiation? Look, I think the answer is, in essence, both. And so yes, we feel very good about the resources that we brought together and the assets that we have. And so for us, Acxiom has multiple benefits. It's acknowledged as sort of the gold standard in terms of handling data safely and securely and an ethical approach to how you build these solutions. I think that's going to be a differentiator going forward because I think clients realize that they need to have a first-party data-driven way to go into the marketplace to engage with consumers. And so what that means is, am I dealing with the provider who has the strongest track record of building those kinds of solutions? And am I doing that in a way which, as regulation and consumer expectations around privacy ramp up? And in that regard, we feel very good about the strength of Acxiom. So I think that that's clearly something where we see differentiation. So when I see perhaps announcements that look like they're trying to get to places where, for me, it's less about what is the big noise or the big headline in the market. It's just on a regular basis, are you seeing in your engagements with clients, either they're turning these capabilities on or they're asking you for advice? So again, for us, a long-standing commitment to being fully transparent in our media dealings and therefore consultative and aligned with the interests of clients will also apply in this next phase. So I do think we've got very, very strong assets. And then on top of that, execution is absolutely a given. So you need to deliver on because these are complex engagements where you're pulling together now, in many cases, the marketing side of the house at a large organization with the technology side and they're sorting it out. So you come in to help them with that. So I think execution is going to continue to be key. And then pushing the envelope in terms of, are you connecting that to the new channels, to e-com? Are you continuing to get the best talent? But we do feel very good about the assets that we've got in place. Great. Thank you very much for that. Moving to privacy, which has always been topical, but it's slightly more topical now that iOS 14.5 is out for a couple of weeks, and apparently, only 6% of Americans think it's cool to be tracked, and 94% of them say, "Don't track me. Don't advertise to me," so end of cookies, end of tracking. First question is, what will be the impact on agencies, do you think? I mean, it's funny, right? Because nobody is going to tell you they like it, right? I mean, so by definition, I think it's one of those things where 20 years ago in the industry world, people would say they would do, "Do you like advertising?" And of course, everybody would say, "No, no, I don't like advertising." But then everybody still wanted to talk about the advertising they saw on the Oscars or on the Super Bowl or if it was actually relevant to them. So I think that what we're going to see is, I mean, and look, GDPR, we had that same moment of like, so I think that there's going to be an interesting in-between time, right? The cookies deprecate and go away through things like iOS or through things like anything that kind of looks to ensure that when you're engaging with people, they have an understanding of what is happening and what that value exchange is, and there's consent. But to my mind, there's going to be this moment where there's no longer a standard, and we're going to all be trying to understand what is the new standard that is acceptable, that people are comfortable with, where they feel that it's not overly intrusive or that the benefit to them is meaningful. None of us likes getting the same advert for the 40th time online. That's understandable. Clearly, you don't want to have a situation where, from a privacy perspective, anything is being mishandled. But I think what's going to happen is that the platforms will try to solve with the cohort approach and will test and learn with them. And that will either prove to be quite good at getting people the messages that they should be getting in ways that are relevant and timely, or it'll prove to be good for certain use cases. And then we'll also be engaged in some activity with some of the players in the space who are alternatives to perhaps so incremental alternatives or new alternatives to the platforms where they're building their systems with some of these things baked in. And then you'll look for ways to solve this and still understand who that individual is, who that audience is, why they're particularly valuable for the client that has something that they should hear about. And I think that's why, as I was saying, a lot of clients will say, "With my own first-party data and the right partners, can I create a big enough alternative set of interactions, addressable consumers, some partnerships where maybe you do data exchanges in ways that are, again, thoughtful and safe?" And people will begin to once again hear from companies, and they'll decide whether that's something they're comfortable with or not, or whether because, again, as I say, there's clarity around what's happening or what the benefit to them is. So I think that over time, we'll get to a place that will actually be beneficial for all parties. I mean, we feel like we're well on the way as an independent entity in solving some of these identity resolution problems. And that's before we then partner up with some of the other players in the space. And do you feel that it's kind of a smooth transition? There was a standard. You're working on a new standard, and it is broadly neutral for IPG, or because people don't know what to do, they're still looking for the new standard, there are multiple alternatives out there, and people still don't know which one will work, they're therefore in need of more advice, more IPG, and therefore it will be good for the agencies as we transition from one model to the other? Well, look, I think, as I mentioned to you, I mean, we've always seen that what we're trying to do is to be consultative. And we're a professional service business. We now have a layer of technology that's embedded in it, which I think takes our services and the value add that we can bring to a higher order. And so I think that a moment in time when there is more complexity could clearly be an opportunity. And I think everybody will be sorting out. There's a lot of clients with a lot of sophistication in this space, but I think people will be sorting out which of those buckets. Everybody will be saying, "I need line of sight." Some of our clients in industries that are less data-rich just by the nature of how they are distributed or when and how they're consumed and at what price points. But even consumer goods clients are saying, "How do I build up the trove of data I have? How do I engage with consumers in a way where everybody understands what's going on, but they're willing to share with us because they understand that there'll be benefits to them?" So I think that there'll be stops and starts, and there'll be a bit of confusion, but things will bucket. People will try different things based, again, on kind of what are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to build brand awareness? Is it a use case where you already know a lot about the individual and you're just trying to get them over the line for a considered purchase? And therefore, is it like healthcare where it's a very closed ecosystem? So you know a great deal about the sometimes you're dealing with a very specific population, and they're very interested in hearing what's potentially available to them to help them deal with a chronic condition, for example, things like that. So I think it'll be a little choppy, but I don't think that we'll see a dramatic decrease in activity. I think net net, it'll probably be marginally an opportunity. We definitely think that we're getting lots of questions around data strategy, around deployment of first-party data. I was talking with a client earlier this week in the automotive space who said, "It's funny, I've got a note here." It said, "I'm really excited that you're able to help me take my own data, build a first-party data graph, and have that be an asset that I own and that I can put to use going forward in my business." So that's definitely not a conversation that would have taken place in our sector five years ago. Staying on the same subject, but moving to the media side. So you say agencies will adapt marginally, potentially positive. But in terms of the media impact, will that cause a shift? Because you'll get, for instance, less activation, more branding, less growth in digital back to brand-building media like television, or again, you think it's going to be pretty marginal? I think that it's so case-based. So for example, if you think back to when there was appropriate concern, not about privacy per se, but about brand safety and the platforms and whether or not and the extent to which people should consider. For us, we published a set of principles that said to our clients, "When you engage with the platforms, here are things that you should be asking them so that your investments are funding media that is constructive in a sort of macro sense." And what happened there is that some clients pulled away, some clients paused. So I think what we're going to see is. I I mean, it's a very nuanced question that you asked there because if I have a certain kind of product and I have a certain kind of I'm launching a product, broad awareness is something I'm looking to achieve in the same way that a number of years ago, people said, "Oh, that will still stay in broadcast TV and not go so much to the digital platforms." Some of that may still then lean marginally away from the digital space where, to your point, we would do more activation, more of a certain kind of. But so much inventory is becoming addressable, and the pandemic clearly accelerated that, that you can do the equivalent of network TV in a way that's very addressable and very compliant in this new way of working. So I think that there'll be some shifts. Things will rearrange themselves, but it'll be more on a case-by-case basis than some broad everybody says, "No, no, no, I can't do this. I'm going to go back to doing that. Staying on your answer, because you talked about TV is now more and more addressable, so TV today is different than it was. So how do you see the demand for ad-supported streaming looking versus legacy TV? Is it cannibalistic, or is it new ad dollars? Do people say, "Well, that's just TV, so I'm taking from the linear bucket to go into the addressable TV bucket," or do they say, "Well, actually, addressable TV can replace Facebook, so it's kind of new money"? What's your view on that? Well, I mean, I think that we're seeing a growing concentration in media ownership, which I think you could have foreseen in terms of what was going to have to happen for the, quote, sort of traditional media owners to thrive in a world where you started to have the balance shifting as it has for a number of years now. So I think you could have foreseen what was happening there. I think that there are now very large, powerful players in the, quote, traditional space, and they're going to market in a very smart, integrated way. So when they engage with anybody, they're saying, "Here's the breadth of our inventory, and we're going to craft a solution for you so that there's a future for them as well." They can say, "We're going to take some of our inventory in these more, quote, traditional forms and a lot of our inventory in some of these new forms." And obviously, the streaming services are getting a lot of uptake, so that means that there's interest in some of what's going on there. So I think it's going to be kind of a continued evolution. I think that there'll be some that they pull back, but everything is digital. I mean, in essence, it's all going to be consumed in a screen because that's the most powerful way to get images and sound and things that engage you. How I get it served to me matters less and less. It's really just, am I getting it served to me in a way that is really relevant, even sometimes not just at the right time, but I'm a different consumer for a specific client at a different time of day or at a different point during the week or at a different time of year, definitely on different devices depending on what I'm doing and understanding all of that. So I think there'll be net, the net universe will grow, and there may be some shift back as the big players create these more integrated solutions that have a meaningful digital component. Okay, great. Well, we are coming up to the end of our session. So, Philippe, thank you very, very much for your time, and thank you very much for your thoughtful answers, as always. And thanks for doing that for the second year in a row. I hope we're starting a tradition, and we'll celebrate our 10-year anniversary together in a couple of. Absolutely. By By next year, hopefully, we'll do it live because last year, we did it with the same picture behind me and the same beautiful beams behind you. So yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yes, that would be yeah, I'll toast that. Let's hope it's physical next year. And thank you very much for your time, Philippe. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Ciao.