Campaign published content on acknowledging Juneteenth during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, stating that commemorative sentiments feel like performative PR and heat shields; plus, official celebrations are delegated to organizations of color.
This is totally reflective of anything Black in global Adland—especially originating from the UK and US.
Indeed, Cannes even pushed things further. For example, the awards organization appointed its first Chief DEIBA+ Officer last year. Of course they did. There are also special scholarships and charitable donations. And don’t forget the entertainment provided by Black artists.
Nothing will be authentically inclusive unless Cannes creates a new trophy category for Juneteenth or Black History Month campaigns.
Until then, everything comes off as what it is—performative, box-checking bullshit.
Honor, reflect and act: Juneteenth celebrations in Cannes should not be performative
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has coincided with Juneteenth for the past two years — but the conversations it should inspire aren’t happening in the Palais.
By Bailey Calfee
Each year, marketers across the globe flock to seaside France to attend the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. But for the past two years, the festival’s dates have coincided with Juneteenth, which was made a U.S. federal holiday in 2021.
Though Cannes Lions has made more space for discussions on inclusive marketing and DE&I, most — if not all — conversations about Juneteenth are hosted by inclusive partners rather than by the festival itself.
For example, creator agency Influential and Urban One, a media conglomerate targeting Black American audiences, are co-hosting a Juneteenth concert featuring Ludacris following a panel discussion with the multihyphenate earlier in the day. Cannes Can: Diversity Collective (CC:DC) will host a day of programming dedicated to the holiday at its Inkwell Beach space.
Alfred Liggins, CEO of Urban One, described Cannes coinciding with Juneteenth as “a wonderfully productive coincidence,” as it allows attendees to honor the holiday while “at the same time, creating diverse conversations and opportunities in the advertising and marketing field.”
Cannes Lions inevitably benefits from the inclusivity these activations facilitate. However, there are no related discussions or events on the official Palais programming, leaving it to Black marketers to start and maintain the inclusion conversation.
That’s not to say that Cannes has done nothing around inclusivity. It has grown its scholarship offerings, giving 10 people from underrepresented communities fully paid access to the festival each year. It also appointed its first chief DE&I officer last year, Frank Starling.
And this year, it has partnered with Maison Foundation, a nonprofit that creates opportunities for historically underrepresented and excluded people in advertising, to host a Run to Recenter on the morning of June 19. The run will start at the infamous Palais red steps, where Maison Foundation will project Juneteenth messaging on the big screen, and end with a guided meditation in the water at Inkwell Beach.
Andre Gray, president and founder of Maison Foundation and chief creative officer at Annex88, said he finds the partnership to be a “significant vehicle” to support the Juneteenth conversation at the festival. He added that while Cannes Lions has gaps in understanding how to properly honor the holiday, it is indeed “trying to create more of a concerted effort.”
But there is still more to be done.
Why honoring Juneteenth during Cannes is necessary
Because Juneteenth is an American holiday, and was only recently made a federal one, some may argue that there’s no need for a large celebration at an international festival like Cannes.
But that argument — intentional or otherwise — diminishes the global impact of Black American culture. As Liggins noted, “African-American culture has driven popular culture for decades now — and American popular culture, ultimately, is exported to the world.”
Lola Bakare, CMO advisor and inclusive marketing specialist, said if she were in a position of power at the Cannes Lions, “I would be thinking really hard about how our global celebration of creativity happens to be on a week that was a milestone in the abolition of slavery in the United States, a place where a lot of the culture of creativity originates.”
Adrianne Smith, SVP and partner, chief diversity and inclusion officer at FleishmanHillard and founder of CC:DC, believes Juneteenth is “about an information dissemination problem” at its core, since it celebrates the day that some enslaved people found out they were emancipated years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
To that point, Juneteenth-related programming should address the exclusion of Black folks from mainstream narratives in marketing — an issue that remains disturbingly relevant, she said.
“Juneteenth takes on more significance because I don't want us to ever have one of those Juneteenth moments again,” said Smith. CC:DC aims to “have forward-focused conversations that invite people in to learn more and for us to be able to collaborate on what's happening now and in the future — versus celebrating that we had no idea that we were free.”
This year, CC:DC’s programming will tackle the dangers of systematic exclusion of Black people from the development of AI tools and “celebrate the opportunities that are found” in the tech space, said Smith. “We are on the precipice of experiencing that [information dissemination problem] again because of what's happening with AI and technology,” she added.
Celebrating Juneteenth this year in particular is crucial, as so many companies in the industry have pulled back on DE&I.
“The doors are closing; things are waning and people are trying to get back to regularly scheduled racism,” said Gray. “But I also believe there's just enough people that still feel naive enough, and strong enough and have enough fight in them to try to make things right.”
Because of its history, Juneteenth in Cannes should be meaningful, rather than just an event that includes the holiday as a keyword.
“If you’re going to celebrate Juneteenth, celebrate it with the right intention — not just a dumbed-down version of, ‘let me give you a performative celebration to honor you not knowing you were free, and we’re going to keep reminding you of that,’” said Smith.
She continued, “If you're going to celebrate it, celebrate it by giving back to your community.”
Making space for change
The fact that Cannes takes place during Juneteenth should be used as a catalyst for reflection and actionably practicing anti-racism. It should also inspire “hyper-vigilance to making sure we are paying back historical debts in every move we make,” said Bakare.
“I would rather see a Black person on every panel than a Juneteenth party,” she added. “There’s no reason why we have yet to establish non-negotiable commitments to correcting the historical exclusion of people representing the global Black diaspora in the marketing and advertising industry.”
In order for more productive conversations surrounding Juneteenth — and inclusive marketing in general — Cannes Lions must take action to prioritize inclusivity.
“Cannes Lions can play a powerful, paradigm-shifting role in establishing new standards that could lead to systemic change across the conference and event ecosystem worldwide,” said Bakare.
Smith said when she attended the festival for the first time in 2017, “maybe 200 people looked like me — and they were either the help or the talent.” Since then, the festival has “done a better job of creating scholarship opportunities,” which were not as common a few years ago.
However, content programming is still lacking in diverse representation on panels, which inevitably leads to a lack of inclusive discussions.
“Why is there a single panel without a Black representative?” asked Bakare. “Why are there conversations about culture and representation without Black people represented? Why aren't we going out of our way, especially this week of all weeks, to make sure we're doing it right?”
Smith, who has attended Cannes since 2017 and sponsored Inkwell Beach through CC:DC since 2019, is included in Palais programming for the first time this year. The fact that it took so long proves that inclusivity efforts at Cannes are still a sideshow to the festival’s main programming.
Cannes Lions’ can force action and scrutiny by calling its partners to ensure panels and events “address the historical exclusion of Black people globally” by ensuring a certain percentage of panelists are Black, Bakare said.
“The actual correction of historical exclusion is what matters,” she said.
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