AI won’t save advertising, says Digitas’ Amy Lanzi
AI won’t save advertising, says Digitas’ Amy Lanzi
Digitas 首席执行官 Amy Lanzi：AI 拯救不了广告业
The CEO of Digitas on why overpromising with AI is a dangerous path for marketers. Digitas 首席执行官谈为何过度承诺 AI 对营销人员来说是一条危险的道路。
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 the Cannes Lions advertising festival in the South of France. I know, it’s a hard gig, but I do it for you. 今天我们带来了一期特别的《Decoder》节目——我有机会在法国南部戛纳国际创意节（Cannes Lions）的 Uber 别墅，面对现场观众与 Digitas 北美区首席执行官 Amy Lanzi 进行了交谈。我知道，这工作很辛苦，但我都是为了你们。
Amy has been on Decoder three times now, and she’s one of my favorite people to chat with — she is clear-eyed about what the advertising industry really is and does for brands and what all the money sloshing around the ad-supported internet really accomplishes. You’ll hear her say that she thinks the traditional chief marketing officer role is done for and that her job is driving business results using data and analytics. Amy 已经是第三次做客《Decoder》了，她是我最喜欢交谈的对象之一——她对广告业的本质、它为品牌所做的工作，以及广告支持的互联网中流动的资金究竟实现了什么，有着清醒的认识。你会听到她说，她认为传统的首席营销官（CMO）角色已经终结，而她的工作是利用数据和分析来推动业务成果。
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 were creators, and, of course, AI. And Amy, alongside her parent company Publicis, aren’t holding back when it comes to calling out the AI nonsense for what it is. 这听起来可能很简单，但在戛纳却是一个令人震惊的声明。戛纳是整个广告业每年聚会、喝着桃红葡萄酒并自我洗脑相信各种荒谬言论的地方。今年，最大的趋势是创作者，当然还有 AI。Amy 和她的母公司阳狮集团（Publicis）在揭露 AI 炒作的本质时，毫不留情。
Publicis actually put out an ad before Cannes listing all the false 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. 阳狮在戛纳开幕前发布了一则广告，列举了所有关于 AI 在广告领域被做出的虚假承诺。因此，我问了 Amy 关于这件事的看法，以及除了生成垃圾内容和标题党之外，AI 到底有什么实际用途。毕竟，Meta 和其他大型平台都在戛纳大谈特谈如何用 AI 生成越来越多的广告——这威胁到了行业内几乎所有其他公司。
Of course, we also talked about the creator economy and how all 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 all launch their own products — something that simplifies Amy and Digitas see as an opportunity, as those companies will need operational scale and excellence if they’re going to be successful over time. 当然，我们还讨论了创作者经济，以及戛纳的所有创作者如何公开称自己为营销人员——本质上是将自己变成了小型广告代理公司。最重要的是，世界上最顶尖的创作者几乎都在推出自己的产品——Amy 和 Digitas 将此视为一个机会，因为这些公司如果想长期成功，就需要运营规模和卓越的执行力。
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. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. 这一期内容非常丰富——正如我所说，Amy 非常敏锐，我真的很喜欢和她探讨金钱运作的真相。好了：Digitas 北美区首席执行官 Amy Lanzi，戛纳现场访谈。开始吧。本次采访为篇幅和清晰度经过了轻微编辑。
Hello everybody. I’m Nilay Patel. I’m the editor in chief of The Verge and the host of Decoder. 大家好。我是 Nilay Patel。《The Verge》主编兼《Decoder》主持人。
Hi. Amy Lanzi, CEO of Digitas, part of Publicis Groupe. 你好。我是 Amy Lanzi，Digitas 首席执行官，隶属于阳狮集团。
I’m very excited to be here with Amy. Amy, we have to stop meeting like this. We only talk during Decoder podcasts. 我很高兴能和 Amy 在这里。Amy，我们不能再这样见面了。我们只在《Decoder》播客里交谈。
I know. We do. We have to do this more. We both live in New York. We should get together more IRL. 我知道。确实。我们应该多聚聚。我们都住在纽约。我们应该在现实生活中多见见面。
Yeah. We only travel 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. And that chaos doesn’t really get resolved. We just move on to the next form of chaos. This year, it’s AI. 是的。我们总是长途跋涉，只为了在现场观众面前交谈，这很棒。感谢大家的到来。感谢 Uber 的邀请。我有很多话想和你聊。似乎每年我们聚在一起时，整个广告业都处于一种新的混乱之中。而这种混乱从未真正解决。我们只是转向了下一种混乱。今年，是 AI。
Yes. 是的。
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. 我想这对在座的各位来说并不意外。在戛纳的每一个角落，谈话的主题都是 AI。让我们开始吧。
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. 阳狮发布了一则你所谓的“虚假广告”，或者说纪录片式广告。它叫《错误的承诺》（The Wrong Promises），基本上是一系列人们在提案中做出的承诺片段，包括“在赢得戛纳狮子奖之前，你无需支付费用”，这简直不可思议。广告底部还写着“这是真实的”。
Yes. 是的。
Tell me about what you are hearing in these rooms that are leading to these crazy AI promises getting made. 告诉我你在这些会议室里听到了什么，导致了这些疯狂的 AI 承诺被做出。
Thank you for bringing up our fun video. It was really designed to stimulate conversations like this. In the business right now, it’s crazy. I’ve been in this business for a long time and we are seeing all kinds of partners offer wild things in the pitch process. 谢谢你提到我们那个有趣的视频。它确实是为了激发像这样的对话而设计的。现在的商业环境太疯狂了。我从事这个行业很久了，我们看到各种合作伙伴在提案过程中提供各种离谱的东西。
It’s different than it’s been before, whether it’s all the things that were, of course, hyped in that video, but also just insane commercial deals that are just generally bad for people and the business. And they’re coming in all different types — whether it’s about free AI, free platform, free whatever — that are creating a dynamic that is not good for all of us in this industry. Because we all need to work together. It is a people business and all of those things really, long-term, create a people problem. 这与以往不同，无论是视频中炒作的那些东西，还是一些对个人和业务普遍不利的疯狂商业交易。它们以各种形式出现——无论是免费的 AI、免费的平台，还是免费的其他什么——这创造了一种对我们行业所有人都不利的动态。因为我们需要共同努力。这是一个以人为本的行业，从长远来看，所有这些事情最终都会演变成人的问题。
Not to get all Toy Story 5 here, but the conversation that you and I are constantly having is about the pressure of the tech platforms on the media ecosystem, whether that’s publishers, whether that’s agencies, whether that’s creators at some point. We’ll come to that. 我不是要在这里谈论《玩具总动员 5》，但你我一直在讨论的话题是科技平台对媒体生态系统的压力，无论是出版商、代理商，还是在某种程度上的创作者。我们稍后会谈到这一点。
But the idea that the platforms have enough scale to promise you business results and then deliver them — whether or not that happens, but they certainly can make those promises — is leading to some of these outcomes. And some of these promises about AI and what it might be able to do, is there any reality to that? Or is that just a reaction to the pressure the platforms are putting on the ecosystem? 但是，平台拥有足够的规模来承诺业务成果并交付它们——无论结果如何，但它们确实能做出这些承诺——这导致了其中一些结果。关于 AI 以及它可能实现的功能，这些承诺中有多少是真实的？还是说这仅仅是对平台施加给生态系统压力的反应？
Whenever this conversation comes about, the promise of AI, I always go back to the promise of programmatic. How many of you remember when programmatic was a thing? No more people, it was all going to magically— 每当谈到 AI 的承诺时，我总是会想起程序化广告的承诺。在座的有多少人还记得程序化广告刚兴起的时候？不需要人工，一切都会神奇地……
No one in this room admitted that they remembered that programmatic advertising was a thing. 在座的没有人承认他们记得程序化广告这回事。
Yes, right, exactly. And that was a time when 是的，没错，正是如此。那是一个……的时代。