Thank you for joining us. Theresa, the CMO, Publicis Sapient, driving force behind those films. I'd be great just for you to give the audience here a bit of background as to what inspired you to drive and create those films.
First of all, thank you for showing the clips for the films. And good morning, everybody. I'm very excited to be here and to share this with all of you. Just before I answer your question, just what you just saw, there was really a trailer for two full documentaries, short documentaries, about 20 minutes each. I invite you to watch them, the full documentary, specifically for Giving Johnny, that's the latest one I just released. And you can actually watch it on Time magazine is streaming it on their website. Now, back to Phil's question. Why doing this and even why showing it to all of you, probably wondering what does this have to do with all of you? So why doing this? For me, it started because I wanted to show that technology can be a force for good. Especially right now that there's so much negative discourse around the role of technology. And frankly, there is reason for that. When we talk about things like social media, there is a reason for people to have concern. But I believe technology ultimately is an enabler. That's what it is. It's not the enemy. And I also believe that when all of us business companies create solutions, they are focused on people, people like Johnny, people like Kristen. Ultimately, we do create a better world for all, not just for a few and not just not for business and companies, but for society. So this journey for me, it started about two years ago. I, as like any other CMO, I wanted to make our work relatable, meaningful, easy to understand. We are a service company, a tech service company, and sometimes what we do is not tangible. So it's really hard to explain to your grandmother and to your relatives, but I wanted to bring the meaning to the work. But I never wanted to talk about the work because frankly, that is the easy part. Not even show the work because that's what we often tend to do. And that's called a case study. And we have lots of those. What I wanted to tell is stories, human stories, why technology is changing a person's life. That's the hard part. So to do that, we engaged in a very unconventional approach. And we engaged with a film director, Oscar-winning film director, Ben Proudfoot, to go and tell these stories, to find truth and meaning in the work, and to create these short documentaries. We have one more coming out. It's going to be focused on healthcare. And to show that. And so that was the reason to do that.
It's a very cool story. And I think the focus on the human, the individual, and the importance of how people feel as a result of the use of technology brings it a lot closer to home. But I suppose for the CIOs in the audience, sometimes that feels a little bit far removed from their day-to-day world. What should they take away from the video, from the films, and from the stories?
And I often, to be honest, a lot of people ask that question, so they look at that. What does that have to do? Because when you, and again, I invite you to watch the entire film, we never mention the work. We never even mention our name. And again, not because our name is actually very difficult to pronounce, but it's very intentional. But what do you take away from all of this? Look, everybody in this room, all of you here, you all work with technology. Everybody, one way or the other, but all work with technology. I work with technology. And because of that, I really believe that we are all here in this room have the ability to enable change. But not just change in your business, changing people like Kristen, changing your customers' customers. And I believe the way to do that is to think of technology not just to driving business outcomes, efficiencies, reduce costs, driving growth, but enabling change. I'll tell you this story. When we created these films, we showcased them to our people internally. And the first film, what I noticed was a dead end that I never anticipated. This was always a project to show the good, to the meaning, and to elevate our brand in the context of doing great. But what I show when we do it internally, it unified our people and brought them together under a sense of purpose. So we did that. Now, the second film, I asked to do a little bit of an exercise. So before we show the film, it was just the second one for Giving Johnny, and we did this largely just done this with mostly engineers in the room. Asked them to say, ask folks in the room, and usually between 50 to 200 people. Asked them a question, who is Publicist Sapient? Who are we? And then show the film, and then after the film, ask the same question again. Who is Publicist Sapient? So when we asked the question the first time before watching the film, the answer is we are a digital transformation company. We are a digital consultancy, a tech company. Okay? Then they watched the film, have a conversation, ask the same question, and it changes. The answer changes. The answers are we are a company that helps people thrive. We are a company that makes an impact. We are a company that cares. Completely changes. And you can notice the first time they answer the question, they talk about what we do. When they watch the film, they answer the question is who we are, because it's two different things. And what it does is really, if you're an engineer, you connect the dots between the code you create. I'm not just creating code. I'm actually making, impacting people's lives. And what they realize, they're not just breaking rocks. They are building a cathedral. So back to your question, why show it here? Because I think everybody in this room can build cathedrals. Cathedrals that can test and stay the test of time and enable society. Because I do believe fundamentally business and companies are the operating system to enable change in society. And I think that's why we all can do that.
Excellent. I think that impact and the tech for good story works really well, particularly in the public sector. So you use those two examples from the public sector. I'm assuming that Publicist Sapient also works in other industries as well. Can you share a couple of examples of what you do in other industries outside of public sector?
Actually, public sector is our smallest business of all industries. We work across all industries. And these examples, these films happen to be in the public sector, but we have case studies. And we're actually doing a lot of case studies now across all industries because this has become something that we actually want to do more and more. And I can tell you a couple of separate examples. Ian in Europe with Amplifon. Amplifon is a company that creates earring aids. When we did, we created an app that allows you to manage the settings, manage your earring aid from your phone. Which again, it does create a lot of the stigma for people that have to have earring aids in order to have to fiddle with it. So I can give you various examples. But the reason as a company that I believe we can do that, because it's our approach to our work. When we think of digital transformation, we always think of from the eyes of the customer, the eyes of the end user, being a customer, being an employee, being a citizen, being a patient. We always look at transformation from the outside in versus the inside out. And we take a very inclusive approach. When we idea with solution together, we bring all capabilities together from product, from engineering, experience, product strategy, data. And those capabilities and people come together and it does create tension. Because they look at the problem from very different eyes. But that tension creates much inclusive solutions.
Excellent, yeah. Great. And running out of time, but one last question, which I think is going to be interesting for the executives in the room, which is more about you as a CMO. Because it looks like you're doing some really interesting things in terms of driving the films, creating these stories, trying to create this new type of impact. What is it that you've done as a CMO that sets you apart from what you would expect from other CMOs? So what are the key learnings as a CMO executive at Publicis Sapient that drives what you're doing?
Well, these films would be one of that things because this was a risk, right? Think about it. I created now three films, don't mention our name, don't talk about the work. They don't even have our brand. Like think about for a CMO, that is kind of like could be a career killer because it's a huge investment and then have to explain people where we do. But actually it was the opposite. And the reason I think I did this because if I didn't think, if I felt like a CMO, I would have considered the risk, the reward, the investment. And I said, I'm not going to do that because that could be really, really not a good thing for me. But I didn't think like a CMO. I threw away the marketing playbook and I made a very decision based on judgment, what I think would be the best thing to elevate our brand. And frankly, it has been, this is the best thing allow us to have this conversation here, allows me to talk in conversations in places and spaces that we would never imagine to be as a B2B2 company organization. So for me, the biggest advice is sometimes you have to go outside, outside your function and