If we had to remember just one thing about the latest Spring Studieswould certainly be the intervention of Jon OrwantResearch Engineering Director of Google as the opening keynote.
Not for the interest of its announcements - more a catalogue of the Mountain View giant's know-how, but nothing really new: as we all knowAlphaGo beat Lee Sedolthe best Go player in the world before being beaten by AlphaGo Zero.
No, the interest lies more in the choice of the person who was to take over the podium from Sir Martin Sorell by WPP (2016) and Peter Sherman by Omnicom (2017).
The presence of the former seemed extremely legitimate, as Kantar is one of the world's top 5 in the sector - and its talk on data proved to be very enriching; the latter had a certain logic to it, as Omnicom was created in 1986 in reaction to the creation the previous year of... WPP!
With Google, we've completely changed the register: we can see it as recognition that the GAFA is leading the way in our profession... which is certainly a daring shortcut!
It is true that data already occupies, and will occupy in the future even more, an important place in our profession - by "given"we will hear "avalanche of data or "big data which is why Martin Sorell two years ago. And of course, AI is playing, and will play in the future, an increasingly vital role in dealing with it.
But will data occupy any the place? Certainly not! And will it only be handled by a few giants, like Google or IBM? Certainly not!
Knowing the consumer will never come down to analysing gigantic databases alone, however sophisticated they may be, because there are lots of things that computers will never be able to do... or not in the near future!
Take a stroll, for example, to discover "by luck and sagacity of relevant results that we were not looking for". - and in particular relevant insights: this is the very basis of the serendipity which we have already mentioned here in this blog.
We could also talk about ethnology, design thinking and so on. Not forgetting the need for empathy to better understand others...
What's more, the GAFAs - and a few other monsters - don't necessarily have to do everything: it's true that they have the power of money and an undeniable strike force! But fortunately "common sense is the most common thing in the world "as we were reminded by Descartes and many start-ups, particularly in France, are developing original alternatives.
Some of these start-ups were present at the Printemps des Études; many others are hard at work in the many Parisian incubators: and a new convergence is being created today between the new players and the most reactive institutes to build the real future of our profession, off the beaten track of the GAFAs.
