trey gowdy. miss if, start smart if every weekday right here on fox business, tune in from 6-9 a.m. eastern for "mornings with maria" right here on fox s.s.s.s.s.s.s.s.s.s.s.s.s.s.s.s. that'll do it for us for now. thanks so much for joining me. have a great rest to have weekend, everybody, and i'll see you again next time. ♪ ♪ gerry: hello and welcome to "wall street journal at large." this week we're at the cannes lyons festival of creativity, as they like to call it here on the french live area ya. it's an annual gathering of senior executives from advertising, television, media, digital companies around the world. they come here, a hardship journey, no doubt, to south of france to discuss trends in media, advertising and marketing. and, of course, they come to do business and make deals.

the big players are all here; facebook, google, amson, snapchat -- amazon, news organizations and anyone who wants to get a message across or sell something. the media has been transformed in the last decade. the vast bulk of advertising money now corporate, nonprofit, political is spent on digital platforms. most of it goes to google and facebook. those digital providers have been able to dominate primarily because of the power of data. there's so much data that they can target advertising and messages so that they reach us most effectively. but those companies are now under fire like never before over issues such as privacy, political bias and the sheer scale. they're being investigated by regulators and politicians of both parties alike. so how might the world of media now evolve? will the digital giants continue to dominate, or will their power be cut down? how will politicians get their message across? what needs to be done to protect

us all, and how are companies changing the way they do business? well, i'm joined now by mark penn. he, of course, is no stranger to politics. among other things, he was bill clinton's pollster and hillary clinton's chief strategist. now he's managing partner at the stag welk group, a digital marketing investment firm. mark, thanks for joining us, and you look very suitably attired for the south of france. welcome. >> thank you very much. gerry: this issue of advertising, these days it's primarily digital, and digital is about data. and it's a very effective way of companies being able to target advertising or people being able to target advertising to their consumers, but it does create privacy problems. how do we get the balance right between our desire to have advertising that's relevant to us? >> well, first of all, most advertising is still conventional advertising. but all of the growth in the advertising industry is online as people shift their budgets.

now, think about conventional advertising for a minute. there were only so many shows and so many spots. it was a very limited good. so you would then buy an individual spot. on line advertising, though, is a virtually unlimited good because of the multiple of times that you can reach people. so the question is how do we get the right ad to right person at the right time. that requires data. otherwise you'd be receiving ads all sorts of nonsense that you have absolutely no interest in, and the market would break down. so data is the glue, the oil, the gold that makes it work. gerry: and the traditional complaint of advertisers was that they would just put an ad in a newspaper tv, and they know it would reach their audience some way, but they didn't know who they were or how to reach them. >> that was it. ask you'd try to come up with a clever way, you know, people who watch baseball tend to do more fishing, so you'd sell them fishing rods. now you can actually find people who are interested in fishing

and sell them fishing rods. gerry: and you know that because, essentially, you've given them that information -- >> taken some picture of their fishing trip or posted some different fish they've caught. so you have a very different indication of what they're interested in so that the ad can match the person. and in theory, that should make for a more interesting marketplace. the question is, is that what we see happening. gerry: but the other question is how much information, how much of our personal information about our personal online activity or our lives do we want companies out this to know. >> well, i think that's where you're seeing a real conflict now between the information that's necessary to drive efficient advertising and what people are comfortable giving out. i know when i -- one of my jobs was chief strategy officer at microsoft, i know people didn't like their mail being read for advertisements, and so a lot of the companies stopped doing that. microsoft never did it. but when people say, hey, i'm looking for a television set,

they don't mind getting television ads. so most consumers are okay with most information. they don't want their name, social security, date of birth out there, they don't want personally identifiable information, and they don't want their zone of privacy invaded. gerry: tech companies like google and facebook who do dominate digital advertising are getting investigated by government, and they're raising a lot of concerns. listen to what tim cook, ceo of apple, of course, said just last weekend giving the commencement speech at stanford university about the dangers to privacy from what these companies are doing. >> if we end as normal and unavoidable that everything in our lives can be aggravated, sold or -- aggregated, sold or even leaked in the event of a hack, then we lose so much more than data. we lose the freedom to be human. gerry: it's a threat to our freedom, to our very humanity. do you think that's right?

>> well, let me give you an astounding poll finding from a recent harvard/harris poll. and which i'm a co-director of. so, but we asked are you comfortable sharing your opposite, thatt canour constrain their freedom. i, frankly, think we need to expand the first amendment to workplace so that no person can be fired or thrown out of a school for something that they have said as opposed to something they've done unless it violates the first amendment a standard. gerri: that is going on on university campuses and companies, people are genuinely afraid to say whether they support a political party. >> there are people who are afraid to say that, and what was supposed to give us enhanced freedom is doing the opposite. i don't want a school or a company to say -- to then have to bend if to mobs who want people fired because they said something. the first amendment is for unpopular stances. [laughter]

t not for popular stances. gerry: you say you should extend the first amendment, presumably, it does already cover that. >> no. gerry: we haven't seen it enforced, right? >> no, it actually doesn't. gerry: people can be fired for speaking out? politics? >> yes. there are very few cases where that's not the case. gerry: let me ask you about this issue, companies like google and facebook are facing tougher scrutiny, the european union introduced gdpr, major constraints on sharing data. the u.s. government is now investigating. what, in your view, what needs to be done about protecting people's privacy? >> well, i think you'll eventually see additional legislation. i don't think it'll happen in this gridlocked congress, so probably in two or three years. i think that legislation's going to be like gdpr. look, you should be an informed consumer. many consumers are okay with getting free services in exchange for data and information. but as we say in the business, no such thing as a free app. a free app is secretly selling

all sorts of information and data, and you ought to at least give a knowing, informed consent for that process. and that will set the boundaries pretty well. and then there are some things like the bill of rights. we have to be careful with basic personal identifying information and giving that out. gerry: what about companies, very quickly because we've got to take a break, google and facebook and twitter, do you think they do discriminate against people on political grounds? >> i think the question is not whether they do it, but how they do it. because they have the power of the platform. and so unless we change, you know, i think that we'll see action on the antitrust front long before we'll see action on the privacy front because the regulatory agencies are moving on antitrust. the question is they realize how do they discriminate on content, what's the process. right now there's a move towards hiring thousands of censors. i would actually rather -- the users have the option of what they want to hear and see rather than a prior restraint. gerry: up next, i'll be talking

with mark about the 2020 election, of course, and the president's chances of re-election. we're at the cannes lyon international festival of creativity in the south of france. here you go little guy. a cockroach can survive submerged

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♪ ♪ gerry: i'm back with mark penn. let's talk about 2020 presidential election. president trump launched his official re-election campaign this week. you're a seasoned political pollster, you've advised presidents and candidates in the past. right now where would you rate the president's chances of re-election? >> well, we look pretty much at the job approval rating for an incumbent. if you're at 40-45%, probably going to lose. if you're at 45-50%, probably going to win. if you're over 50%, you're almost definitely going to win. president trump right now is hovering around 45. he's right on the kind of cusp. you know, i look at his numbers,

62% approve the job he's doing on the economy, only 32% like him personally. it's the biggest gap i have ever seen, and that is what is weighing the president down. gerri: do you think some of those underrate the president's approval? maybe people are understood comfortable -- we just talked about people saying they're trump supporters to pollsters, to stranger, but when they get into the polling booth, they are trump supporters. >> i don't trust those polls that have his ratings in the 30s, because 90% of his previous supporters support him, i don't trust anything below 43 right now. i do think he's somewhere between that 43 and 47%. i do believe the polls that show him behind biden. look, i've run incumbent presidential campaigns before. incumbents versus challengers, he's got to show a record, that he's got a whole plan for the next term so that he can make a difference, and he has to deal with his his personality issues

to reassure suburban voters or he's not going to get them back. gerry: people aren't focused on the election, so they're not looking at what joe biden's saying or campaigning on? >> well, they're not yet focused on the democratic candidates. they are focused on president trump. [laughter] i do think that's going to come into focus. he's had no opponent, so essentially the president is running against himself at this point, and he's winning or losing depending upon how you look at it x. the democratic candidates will have the first debate, and that will begin to create a focus on how they're all doing. i think so far you're seeing as expected, but mayor pete is the surprise of the pack so far. gerry: just quickly, again, you've advised incumbent presidents. how important is the economy? the economy in the u.s. is strong right now, people feel pretty good about the economy. is it likely, is it even conceivable that a president could lose with an economy? >> it's conceivable because of the numbers i outlined. right now he's getting

incredible performance numbers on the economy. the american public recognizes it's his economy, not obama's. but those personal ratings are the lowest i've seen for somebody with those economic ratings. he's got to close that gap if he wants to do what normally happens which is the economy is the number one variable. gerry: you mentioned mayor pete, joe biden, is it biden's to lose, and if it's not, then it's mayor pete or bernie sanders? who do you think is plausible -- >> i think it's a little early. i think biden is a front-runner. you don't like to be a democratic front-runner, as i can tell you -- [laughter] gerry: with hillary clinton. >> there's 23 other candidates. that means there's 22 that are going to to be fighting to bring you down, and that's why biden is avoiding some of these places where he's just going to be attacked. i think he's ahead of the pack, but i think kamala harris has a good opportunity, i think sanders and warren have a good opportunity, and mayor pete, i think they may well have a convention where nobody gets the majority on the first ballot, and deals are going to have to be made.

gerry: what would make biden stumble? >> well, look, i think people are going to see him, and part of the big momentum for biden was that he was a moderate. i think if he shifts too far to left to try to please the left, he won't pick up any votes from sanders or warren, he'll just throw away his own. gerry: thank you very much. we shall see. there's lots more political commentary and analysis to come over the next year and a half. coming up from cannes, i'll be talking to someone with a creative new way to solve business problems by updating a very old business method. that's next. ♪ ♪ do you feel like people are avoiding you?

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♪ ♪ gerry: this week in cannes is

all about creativity, and it's not just the modern media and digital companies seeking that creativity. all businesses are looking for new ways to reinvent themselves too. traditionally, they turn to management consultants to help them innovate their brands and products, but there are new ways of achieving that. joining me now to talk about her business and the way it's using a very new way is the founder of mesa and codera. barbara, welcome. how do you work with companies to change the way they do business? >> okay. the way we look at it, you have a problem, and you have to assemble a team that has every single piece of knowledge and everything that you need to solve that problem. most of the people people are not working like this. they get a problem, and they say i'm going to work with my team, and that's wrong. the first thing is the problem itself, and that's -- gerry: you've worked with some of the biggest companies in the world. >> yes.

google, coca-cola, netflix -- gerry: and the company's called mess a saw for a reason, it's spanish and portuguese. >> perfect. we believe tables are the perfect combination between pleasure and commitment. and we think work should be like that. in fact, we believe work is the best thing in the world and should be, but most of the time people deal with it as if it was a boring thing, you know? it was the least exciting part of life. and sometimes we joke that when people want to make work great, they bring out all the things that have nothing to do with work like ping-pong tables. and at mesa what we do is we bring out everything that makes work right, the opportunity of creating something new, getting to know new people and also working with every single piece of knowledge that you need which makes a huge difference. gerry: literally bring people around a table, who comes together and works with the company? >> a lot of different partners, something that a lot of companies are not doing.

they have talent spread around their organization, and they don't use it. and we also bring experts, people who are running some of the most extraordinary companies in the world to work together with the team's organization. gerri: it's not just brainstorming, you actually work, you produce new products and ideas. >> yes. it's pretty unbelievable how much you can get them if you have everyone. we believe in doing over anything else, it's not about talking, it's actually executing something. for example, working with the biggest company in latin america, we actually created a whole gym, the whole facility, the whole training system everything in five days. when we finished -- gerry: literally created a physical gym, treadmills and whatever else -- >> in five days. we started with the problem, how can we get a new -- gerry: did you bring in people

from the company and people from outside with ideas, experts in their field? >> we actually only bring in people who are doers, people who are -- [inaudible] so it's not exactly a debating environment. we actually believe that people tend to think that you need to -- in order to make strictly decisions, we prove over and over again the faster you move into execution, the better. gerry: and what's your track record of working over this five-day period around the table, how successful has it been? >> we've done, we've run 14 methods -- 164 methods, and only 17 of them didn't see the light of day. we never say we're delivering manager, but we actually consider a failure for ourself is if that is not adopted by the company. even though i have no responsibility over it after it's done, but i think that speaks of the huge success. gerry: just very briefly,

explain why that works better than a traditional bunch of management consultants coming in with their clipboards and saying this is what you should do? >> i think the trick is in doing instead of trying to plan. i see a lot of people wasting a lot of time bringing in really talented people, and then they'll talk about stuff. and we don't really solve complex problems just talking about them. you really have to move into executing. gerry: thank you very much for joining me. >> thank you. gerry: just ahead, how diversity is lacking in the big media companies in a very particular way and why that needs to change. stay with us. ♪ ♪ thanksno problem.. -you're welcome. this is the durabed of the all new chevy silverado.

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♪ ♪ gerri: the media landscape is changing almost daily. digital consumption is soaring while traditional print and even television engagement continues to decline. giant tech companies dominate the advertising market, but they're facing rising scrutiny from regulators over privacy and other issues. more and more people are viewing content and subscribers from netflix to spotify and, yes, to "wall street journal," i'm glad to say. one thing that isn't changing much is the cultural can and political message of most of that content. the big media, entertainment and tech companies -- with a few notable exceptions -- still lean in one clear political

direction, leftwards. there's much emphasis on on the need for greater diversity in media, gender, ethnic, cultural diversity. and it's too bad there isn't as much emphasis on political and ideological diversity. well, that's it for us this week from the south of france. be sure to follow me on twitter, facebook and instagram, and i'll be back next week with more in-depth interviews right here on the "wall street journal at large." thank you very much for joining us. ♪ ♪ doug burns, back? >> yes.>> thank you for joining us. thank you and hope for watching. lou dobbs is next right here on

the fox business network. have a good evening. lou: good evening everybody i am david asman sitting in for lou dobbs. president trump such to ramp up interior immigration enforcement this weekend. the present directing immigrations and customs enforcement to gather up 2000 illegal immigrant families facing deportation.the attorney general, william barr, has a radical dems in the deep state on notice, the review of the russia witchhunt origins now looking into whether the intel communities assessment that russia wanted donald trump to win was politically motivated. and