Are safe zones at Cannes enough?

What does it say about the ad industry that its premier festival needs safe zones

Hello dear readers,

Welcome back to Creative Pursuits. This week’s edition will dig into the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity and the need for safe zones at the festival.

We’re just two weeks out from the annual boondoggle in the south of France that is the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity and it’s hard not to worry about what it’ll be like this year.

It’s not just a matter of how strange it is for companies to be putting hiring freezes in place, cutting T&E budgets, shedding staff like there’s no tomorrow and then turning around and spending like they do at Cannes. That’s the case every time there’s a downturn. And every time you hear executives make the case for spending big in Cannes because that’s where the wheeling and dealing happens. They need to be rubbing elbows with the who’s who in media, advertising, entertainment, sports and the expanding lists of industries showing up at Cannes. It’s just good business for them to be drinking pink wine and racking up five figures in expenses while doing it. Where else can the C-Suite execs buckle down and figure out how they’ll consolidate the industry next?

It’s also not just a matter of how rewarding creativity and craft in advertising has become secondary to said wheeling and dealing. No, all of that is not my worry about Cannes this year. My worry is about the need for safe zones at Cannes. If you’ve missed the news: Adweek reported last week that the festival will introduce three safe zones that will be staffed 22 hours a day. (More info from the festival about the safeguards can be found here.) The addition of the safe zones comes after reports of sexual assault from last year’s festival. I understand why the festival would add safe zones. There’s a responsibility from Cannes to address what’s happening on the ground and try to give people a space they can go to should something happen that they need to report.

But the addition of the safe zones to Cannes brings up a number of questions, chief among them: What does it say about the industry that it needs to have these safe zones?

I’ve spent the last few days talking to people in advertising about the culture at Cannes with that question in mind. There’s a sense from those who’ve been to Cannes regularly and those who’ve never been that the debauchery is part of the point. The obscene amount of rosé, the all nighters, the elusive parties, the hope of winning a Lion, the thrill if you actually do, and the all expense paid trip to the south of France is the reward for working in a grueling industry that’s only gotten more so.

It’s almost like there’s a mindset that Cannes is the industry’s Vegas week. You go, drink, smoke (because you’re in France, after all), party at Gutter Bar until all hours, live it up and hope that you find the right balance between partying and networking so that you can face your coworkers in the morning. But what if that idea of balance is flawed to begin with? It’s hard to imagine an industry culture working when it’s one that needs to introduce safe zones to the industry’s premier festival.

“These safe zones are damning evidence that our industry leaders have not been held accountable for upholding a standard of abuse against women,” said one creative who requested anonymity. “How is it that the best in our industry need a tiered trauma triage infrastructure in place to support inevitable assaults? Who are we sending to Cannes, and why does Cannes continue to put them on yachts with alcohol and women they have power over? And how did we come to coddle abusers with band-aid measures instead of dismantling the circumstances that lead to such disgusting behavior?”

I won’t pretend to have the answers to those questions but I know that they’re worth asking — really asking — and reflecting on before the industry’s annual hobnobbing.

“This industry loves to say they are solving a problem without solving a problem,” said art director Aisha Hakim. “They love an initiative. They love a public PR statement. They love the appearance of accountability, but there rarely is accountability.”

Cannes can try to put safe zones in place but ultimately the issue is one of the industry — and how it treats the festival. The blurred lines that have been there all along. Remember the couple who got busy on the red carpet a decade ago? Think about how that was treated back then. How different would that be treated now? I’m not sure that much has changed. And maybe that’s part of the problem.

The industry doesn’t want to bring down the mood by policing how people behave at events like Cannes. The partying is so enmeshed with the networking that people are afraid to speak out, afraid to say when something’s gone awry and afraid to be the person who says, “What the fuck?” This year, I can’t help but imagine, they’ll now be afraid to be the person caught going to the safe zone, fearing being branded the tattletale or snitch. That’s if they’ve even been able to get themselves out of the all-too-common freeze mode that happens for victims of assault and make it over to a safe zone.

I hope I’m wrong. I really do. It’d be great if the introduction of these safe zones had people really reconsidering their behavior, made them more willing to call out their peers when they witness something wrong and spend more time keeping each other safe at this year’s festival and beyond. It’d be great if there was an understanding that all the craziness that can make the industry so appealing when you’re younger — party all night? free drinks? hell yeah! — isn’t a hall pass for horrible behavior. And that there’d be real consequences if you cross a line. I just know from experience that even when they know they’re talking to a journalist there are some people in this industry who will say obscene and inappropriate things while trashed. And if they’re willing to do that, what else are they willing to do?

Hakim put it succinctly: “If we think cracking down on bad behavior at Cannes is going to kill the vibe of the event, we might need to have a bigger conversation about who we are as an industry.”

Ahead of this year’s Cannes, I’d argue it’s worth having that conversation.