Brand Safety Takes Center Stage in Cannes

By John Wolfe

Not surprisingly, the issue of brand safety took center stage at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, and the ANA was one of many major players to play a role in the debate.

It started on Monday when 16 global advertisers, along with the ANA, the five leading agency holding companies, and a range of leading media companies and digital platforms including Facebook and Google announced the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a first-of-its kind collaboration dedicated to brand safety.

Participants in the Alliance include a who's who of the world's biggest marketers: Adidas, Bayer, BP, Danone, Diageo, General Mills, GSK Consumer Healthcare, LVMH, Mars, Mastercard, Mondelēz International, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Shell, Unilever, and Vodafone.

Brand safety is also one of the key issues the ANA Global Growth Council plans to focus on over the coming year as a strategic priority to drive growth and achieve marketing objectives. Grouped with sustainability, brand safety was part of the Growth Council's presentation during the Brand Marketer Summit at the Cannes Festival on Thursday.

The Growth Council's goal is to develop a gold standard for helping CMOs drive innovative outcomes that benefit both society and business by focusing on three key areas:

• Gender equality
• Propagating brand safety by eliminating hate speech
• Closing the gap among marketers claiming support for sustainability (70 percent) and those who are actively promoting sustainability (30 percent)

The Growth Council is an impressive group; it's a global community of CMOs representing many of the world's biggest brands. Its leadership body is comprised of 25 CMOs and is chaired by Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer for Procter & Gamble and ANA chairman. It was co-founded by the Cannes Lions Festival and the ANA and introduced at last year's festival.

Read our reports from Cannes here and here.