Stéphane Xiberras: Game-changing creativity

The man who made iconic Canal+ spots like The Bear, The Closet and The Codes, as well as creating innovative campaigns such as Like My Addiction for Addict Aide on Instagram (which generated more than a billion impressions), Stéphane Xiberras is regarded as one of the most successful creatives, helming one of Europe’s biggest agencies, BETC Paris, which just happens to be one of the world’s most awarded too. 

I believe that complex processes do not always favour the emergence of simple, strong, unambiguous, memorable campaigns.

He casts a questing, restless eye across the advertising landscape of 2025, looks back at some favourite campaigns, and examines the challenge of making fresh, uplifting work in these dystopian and confusing times. 

Above: BETC Paris's multi-award-winning campaign for Canal+, The Bear.

Since becoming President of BETC in 2019, how has the company grown and changed, and are the challenges as fun as being a creative director? 

There are more than a thousand people working at BETC in France (and more than 1,500 people worldwide), and it requires a huge amount of effort to avoid any kind of automation of the creative process. 

As Co-Presidents of the agency, with Bertille Toledano, our job is to inspire our talent by bringing enthusiasm and excitement to all the agency’s projects, so that they’ll take pleasure in working together to create new, smart, funny, relevant and efficient things. I still believe that our creative organisations need to maintain a sense of lightness and freshness, even in our crazy world that seems to be written by a drunken Black Mirror screenwriter.

Is it harder right now to grab that sense of humanity and make it feel universal and identifiable? 

From the beginning, our job has been to help sell standardised products to the public. Our role as creative agencies is to bring a soul and a human touch to the process, through any kind of artistic form – whether it be written, visual, musical, poetic or cinematic.

We create campaigns, not PowerPoint presentations. Having successful meetings is not an aim, the art of compromise has nothing to do with creativity.

Disconnecting the advertising industry from its artistic side will inevitably damage the whole sector and lead to even more indifference from people. We have become very standardised, and I believe that complex processes do not always favour the emergence of simple, strong, unambiguous, memorable campaigns. 

We need to find our way back to applied arts, design and production. We create campaigns, not PowerPoint presentations. Having successful meetings is not an aim, the art of compromise has nothing to do with creativity. But, at the same time, I know that powerful ideas always seem disruptive at first, and they are not easy to sell. That’s okay, and it’s our job to guide brands towards more creativity.

Above: Another of Canal+'s classic spots, The Closet. 

Humour is something that runs through all your work – what would be your favourites from your own repertoire of spots? 

The use of humour is obviously something I really enjoy in my work, usually by creating quirky comedies full of derision. French writer Boris Vian once said that “laughter is the polite form of despair”, and it pretty much sums it up. 

If people sometimes get surprised by ads, and suddenly realise that things were not what they thought they were, then something powerful happens and that’s when you make an impact. 

The Bear in Canal+’s The Bear, is an insufferable and spoiled tyrant, The Closet’s screenwriter is a cheating liar, the characters from The Secret of Wakany are gullible fools, the little girl in Papa is a mischievous manipulator... it’s our weaknesses that make us human - being able to acknowledge and laugh about them is a deep kind of human intelligence.

What has the most impact in a successful spot – storytelling, character building, or the surprise denouement? 

What works pretty well is surprising the audience with an unusual twist at the end, that they were really not expecting coming from an ad. What I mean is that there is rarely tension in ads anymore. The weather is always nice, people are kind, everything is pleasant and cool, sometimes people even dance: it’s the wonderful world of advertising! 

So, if people sometimes get surprised by ads, and suddenly realise that things were not what they thought they were, then something powerful happens and that’s when you make an impact. And catching people’s attention is one of the biggest challenges we face in today’s distracted, multi-channel world. 

Above: The little girl in Canal+'s Papa "is a mischievous manipulator.

At the time we're talking, you are heading to London as D&AD President of the Jury for Direct, what’s your expectations for the year’s work?

The Direct category is quite ruthless as you need an idea powerful enough to engage the audience to become the spokesperson for that idea. Not an easy task. I believe that insightful conversations with other jury members will always result in the best work being rewarded. 

Since it’s a competition, I never start with preconceived ideas – we must judge the best campaigns against each other and not against other categories or other years. And, as usual, I know that in the end, beyond the numbers and maths, we must trust our gut feeling and the best criterion for judging a campaign: feeling jealous not to be the one behind it!

When it comes to new work, what surprises you, and what disappoints? 

I’m a huge fan of video games and have been for a long time. Every year, I’m waiting for THE big game launch campaign that will disrupt industry codes. There have been some, but I feel like the formula is wearing thin. When we talk about gaming campaigns, it’s often just the use of the video game as a medium of sorts – an activation in Fortnite, Mindcraft, etc. For game launches, it’s more difficult to create meaningful campaigns with a real idea that highlights the game culturally and not just its gameplay.

It’s that little something extra that makes the difference and creates the gap between very good work and excellence.

I am, generally, totally in admiration of creatives when they know how to circumvent constraints and reach as many people as possible. It’s really hard to find an idea that brings people together, even only on a national scale. An idea’s journey, from conception to production, is extremely fragile, and when I see the final results, knowing all the questions, discussions, and even fights they probably had along the way, I am in total awe of their work. 

I get frustrated with some activations which are certainly relevant, but the way they are crafted can lead us into a rationality devoid of any artistic form. I think to myself, ‘oh yes, it’s very clever,’ but deep down, it doesn’t really touch me. It’s that little something extra that makes the difference and creates the gap between very good work and excellence.

Above: Xiberras is a big fan of video games, as references his his two portrait images, above [Metal Gear Solid] and top [The Witcher].

Having launched Creative Artificial Intelligence [an ad-creating robot] as a warning about dull, algorithmically led creativity, where are we today, now AI is out in the world?

CAI was a sort of happening to show that we didn’t need creatives or agencies to create mediocre advertising, that it might save time and be cheaper, but had no added value in the end. And nothing has changed since. A freewheeling or controlled-by-unskilled-people AI will only create mediocre (at best) or embarrassing (at worst) things. I believe in human creativity enhanced by AI, I trust human talent to surpass and transcend this tool, which remains only a tool.

I have a problem when some so-called smart people try to convince our clients that they’re able to produce high-quality, relevant content with AI. These people are selling photocopiers; my job is to create originals.

Where I have a problem, is when some so-called smart people try to convince our clients that they’re able to produce high-quality, relevant content with AI. These people are selling photocopiers; my job is to create originals. Having a million different versions of something unartistic and meaningless is worth nothing compared to the imperfect original drawing your child made with ‘Daddy, I love you’ written on it. Feeling that there is a connection, an intention, from human to human, is priceless.