Adweek
published a lengthy exposé about two female students who filed a sexual assault
complaint against an Adland consultant, stemming from an incident that allegedly
happened at the 2024 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
The alleged
predatory perpetrator apparently didn’t read the #timeTo
guide to understanding sexual harassment. A Diet
Madison
Avenue
approach might’ve been more effective.
The Adweek
content closed with an invitation for people to come forward if they have a
similar experience to share. Expect an extensive series.
Two Students
File Sexual Assault Complaint Against Ad Industry Consultant in Cannes
The women say
the man told them to accept men’s ‘forwardness’ to succeed in marketing
By Rebecca
Stewart
[Sensitive
content: This article mentions sexual assault. Help is available through the
National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.]
Two U.S.
undergraduate marketing students, *Emma and *Julie, who attended Cannes
Lions as part of an educational program, have filed a report with Cannes
police accusing a U.S. ad industry contractor of sexual assault.
The two women,
20, say the man—who appeared to them to be in his late 30s—not only groped them
but also told them they must learn to accept men’s “forwardness” if they want
to succeed in the advertising field.
ADWEEK is using
pseudonyms for the women with their permission. We are also aware of their
identities, as well as the identity of the man they have accused of sexual
assault. Through his lawyer, the man said their account is “entirely false.”
The women were
prepared to go public with their account but decided not to after each received
a letter threatening a lawsuit. One woman received a further communication by
post to her home address. The women told ADWEEK they did not have the resources
to defend themselves in court.
The bigger
picture
In 2024,
the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity brought
12,000 creatives, marketers, media staffers, and agency execs to the French
Riviera, with more joining around the fringes of the official event without a
pass.
Students are
also becoming a bigger fixture at Cannes, drawn in by programs including Young
Lions. Organizers confirmed to ADWEEK that “several hundred” students attend
Cannes Lions each year, noting a “steady increase” in attendance since 2020.
Days at the
event are followed by late-night festivities, with parties, concerts, and
experiences taking place along the beaches and hotels that line the city. Amid
a whirlwind week of networking and celebrations, festival organizers have been
urged to bolster safety measures in recent years, partnering with industry
groups such as timeTo to tackle sexual harassment.
Emma and
Julie’s account follows several women speaking out after their experiences at
the 2024 event. These include freelance TV documentary director and
partnerships director at Brixton Finishing School, Dagmar Bennett, who wrote
in Campaign that a senior male business associate asked her if she
would exchange sex for money. Ad industry luminary and president of the Glass
jury, Cindy Gallop, also said she saw several instances of men acting in
a sexist way when presenting their entries alongside women.
Organizers
confirmed they could not provide stats related to sexual assault at the
festival, relying on incidents reported directly to them for visibility of the
issue. A spokesperson referred ADWEEK to the police for such details. The
Cannes police did not respond to a request for stats related to sexual assault.
Cannes has
the highest number of police per capita in France. Cannes
Lions did not confirm how much extra policing happens during the event, saying
hotel venues were responsible for their own security. Organizers confirmed that
Cannes Lions security teams were briefed to intervene, record, and report any
offensive or dangerous behavior.
Beyond the
parameters of the festival, the spokesperson said the Lions team worked closely
with the City of Cannes and relevant authorities on safety.
Emma and Julie
had come to Cannes for class credit, with the aim of strengthening their
networking skills.
When they first
arrived in the crowded lobby of the Carlton around 1 a.m., they were excited to
mingle and chat with creatives. Several people at the festival had recommended
the venue as a hot late-night networking destination; Emma recalled the Grand
Prix Lions trophies on tables as people celebrated their wins.
The next day,
they would spend four hours at a Cannes police station each filing a statement
as part of a sexual assault allegation against the industry contractor, who
works for a tech startup that recently received millions in funding and counts
major household name corporations among its clients, per its website.
‘He came out
of nowhere’
Shortly after
arriving at the Carlton, Emma and Julie went outside to the garden at the rear
of the hotel to catch their breath, Emma said.
The two
recalled speaking to another person for around 10 minutes.
When that
interaction ended, a man they would later identify as the accused—whom Emma and
Julie both described as heavily intoxicated—“came out of nowhere” from behind
Julie and grabbed her wrist, Julie recalled to police. “You’re drunk,” Julie
told him. “I think so,” he replied.
In the garden,
the man asked her to spin around, and then again—and then one more time,
slower, so he could “get a better look.”
The 20-year-old
complied, but both women were growing uneasy. Julie took a selfie with the man
to record the encounter. Emma also snapped a photo from behind Julie, capturing
his face. Both images were reviewed by ADWEEK.
Julie tried to
get him to leave her alone by becoming more standoffish and deflecting his
compliments. Eventually, he grabbed her hand and put it to his chest, she told
police.
“I balled it up
into a fist, but he wouldn’t let go of it. He had his other hand firmly planted
around my waist,” she said to ADWEEK. She gently pushed him away.
Eventually,
according to her police report, the industry contractor grabbed her hands and
tried to pull her closer again, placing them low on her hips at the top of her
buttocks.
As he shifted
his body closer to hers, he claimed to be salsa dancing, Julie said. She told
him she did not like to dance. When Julie spotted the person she’d been
speaking to before, she bolted in his direction, she said.
‘I’ll hit
you in the fucking face’
The man then
turned his attention to Emma, who had been speaking with someone else, both
women said.
Emma explained
to the man that she and Julie were students and were at Cannes Lions to
network. When Emma showed little interest in the conversation, she said,
the man told her she had an “attitude” and dismissed her as a “fucking child.”
That is when he put his hand on her buttocks, she told police.
As she told
ADWEEK, “I backed away, and he got more aggressive, telling me to ‘chill out,’
and if I wanted to go somewhere in business I would kind of have to accept
men’s forwardness and inappropriateness if I wanted to do well in my career.”
A man saying
I need to accept sexual assault from men to be able to do well in my career was
just crazy to hear.
Emma,
student
Emma found this
interaction disheartening. “I want to go into business, and a man saying I need
to accept sexual assault from men to be able to do well in my career was just
crazy to hear,” she said. When Emma questioned why he was speaking to her
like this, she asserts that the man told her: “If you don’t chill out, I’ll hit
you in the fucking face.”
“I got really
scared,” she said. “It froze me.”
She says she
tried to further de-escalate by apologizing for her behavior, telling the
industry contractor she was “just stressed.”
The man turned
her around and started pulling at her hair, she said. “So I grabbed my hair
because I’m confused as to what he’s doing,” she said. “I’m like, ‘don’t pull
my hair, please.’” She then recalled the man massaging her shoulders.
“Because his
hands were so big, they were starting to be around my neck—too forward on my
front to be a back massage or shoulder massage, and they started going around
my neck,” Emma said. She made eye contact with Julie who came up and told
her it was time to go.
The man asked
for their phone numbers, but Julie persuaded the man to get out his phone and
request to connect with her by scanning the QR code on her LinkedIn app
instead.
The LinkedIn
profile revealed his name, and both women recognized him from his profile
picture, which also matched the photos of him they had taken earlier that
night.
On his LinkedIn
profile, he listed himself as a director for a tech company. His profile has
since been deleted.
The tech
business told ADWEEK in a statement that the man was not a full-time employee,
but a private contractor who had provided consulting services for the business.
The statement said that the company did not send the man to Cannes, nor provide
any resources for him to attend.
“The company
was unaware that he may have attended the festival until after the festival’s
conclusion,” the statement said.
Both women ran
out of the Carlton. When they got onto the street, they were crying and
struggling to breathe or speak, they said, but they agreed they couldn’t stay
silent about what happened.
“We were like,
‘We can’t let him get away with it,’” said Julie. “I felt like fish in a
barrel.”
‘I’m no
longer going to just let this roll off my back’
After leaving,
the pair said they contacted an on-site professor, texting him that they “just
had an unpleasant and scary experience at the TikTok activation at the Carlton.
… It’s not okay AT ALL for an industry professional to behave that way
regardless of how intoxicated he is.”
The professor
met them at the premises and escorted them home. ADWEEK has seen a timestamped
screenshot of Julie’s message to the professor.
At 10 a.m. that
morning, Emma and Julie spoke to the security team at Ascential (the current
parent company of Cannes Lions pending its sale to Informa) to file
a report.
The head of
security told the women that the Cannes Lions organization would revoke the
man’s delegate pass, the women said. However, they later discovered that the
man was not an official pass holder, as the organization confirmed to ADWEEK.
Cannes Lions declined to further discuss this case.
The two women
then went to a Cannes police station and filed their reports against the man.
ADWEEK has reviewed both police reports, and an interpreter who accompanied
both women to file their statements verified to ADWEEK that the statements,
taken in English but memorialized in French, were accurately translated.
At the time of
writing, the police had passed the case on to French prosecutors but neither
woman has received an update on the status of the case. The Cannes police told
ADWEEK it was unable to comment, citing privacy laws.
A
representative from Carlton Hotel owner InterContinental Hotels Group said the
company was cooperating with the local police on this case but declined to
comment further.
Emma and Julie
also emailed their allegations to the CEO and director of operations of the
business that had contracted the man.
In a reply seen
by ADWEEK, the director of operations said the business has a zero-tolerance
policy toward sexual assault, and that the company would conduct an internal
investigation into what happened.
The company
told ADWEEK in July: “The investigation process is currently active. At this
time, [the man’s] consultancy contract has been suspended.”
When ADWEEK
contacted the company again in August to ask whether the contractor had been
terminated, its lawyers stated it had no further comment.
Emma and Julie
have not heard from the company since June. They hope that in speaking out,
they can spur more “safety and accountability” for women and students at the
festival.
Their reason
for going to the police was not just because they felt “grossed out and
humiliated,” said Julie. “It was mostly because we didn’t want this to happen
to other women.”
Cannes Lions
pointed to its timeTo partnership and said its team was on site to ensure
delegates were “appropriately supported” where needed.
Emma and Julie
said the encounter with the man happened in view of other people. But no one
seemed to notice as everyone was in their own “bubbles.”
This has lit
a fire under me. I’m no longer going just to let this roll off my back. I’m
going to take action.
Julie,
student
And the accused
himself seemed unconcerned about the exchange, the women recalled.
“We felt the
man was very, very comfortable with what he did. This man did not seem ashamed,
nor did he feel that people were watching him whatsoever,” Emma said.
A Cannes Lions
spokesperson said it worked closely with the City of Cannes and relevant
authorities to provide a safe environment and a code of conduct for delegates.
“This is not
the first time I’ve been assaulted. It’s not the first time I’ve been talked
about like that, not the first time someone has gotten up in my space,” Julie
said. “This has lit a fire under me. I’m no longer going just to let this roll
off my back. I’m going to take action.”
Both Emma and
Julie intend to return next year. They have spoken with organizers and senior
industry figures about improving women’s safety at the festival for 2025.
Julie had
begged to go to Cannes when the opportunity first came up, she said, and won’t
let what she experienced at the Carlton dampen her love for the industry and
all Cannes Lions represents.
If you
have a similar experience to share, reach out to Rebecca Stewart confidentially
on the encrypted messaging app Signal @rebecca.stewart.03.
