Remember when brands at Cannes wouldn’t shut up about how they wanted to save the world?
Naturally, they didn’t mean a word of it. In fact, they couldn’t ditch their so-called values fast enough when Trump launched his attack on DEI.
It just goes to show the agility of the world’s most powerful brands. They’ll U-turn on anything if it looks like their profits might be impacted – and they’ll do it faster than you can say “DEI”.
Of course, hardly anyone in the industry is saying DEI anymore. It’s become such a hot-button term that it’s not really factoring into the bigger discussions at Cannes this year.
But that doesn’t mean it’s killed off entirely. There are signs of a DEI rebrand in the works, with many businesses camouflaging it under an umbrella of terms like “wellbeing”, “belonging”, and “culture” to avoid unwanted political attention.
As the Financial Times notes, many earlier DEI programs were seen as performative; what’s emerging in their place are deeper, more integrated strategies that emphasise respect, human connection, and combating workplace isolation.
Clearly, it’s beyond depressing that diversity, equality and inclusivity need to be kept firmly under the radar in order to survive as a force in the business and brand world. But if it helps to safeguard the future of DEI, then, at the very least, it’s a way forward. As Adreiene C Smith, the founder of the Cannes Can Diversity Coalition, told Variety this week: “If you need to shift a word, shift the word. If you need to shift the narrative or something, do it, but just make sure that we’re still consistent in terms of the work that we’re doing.”
Even with attempts at a rebrand, an alarming regression on DEI is taking place in this industry, and the sad fact is that very few keynote speakers are using their platform at Cannes to address it – in any terms.
There is one brand leader however, who isn’t afraid to speak up.
Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen has described corporate America’s retreat from DEI as “appeasement”. He was also arrested recently for disrupting a US Senate hearing in protest against the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and cuts to medical aid programmes in the US. And he is suing parent company, Unilever, alleging that it’s trying to silence Ben & Jerry’s social activism.
If other brand leaders followed Ben Cohen’s example, they might just have a shot at helping to save the world after all. Then the industry really would have something to crow about at Cannes.
Jane Austin is the founder and owner of Persuasion. Communications.
